
h 1 1 



ill 



>= 







.0^ €.»"•♦ 



*' 



3 f :iH^ **o< 







°^ 










% 












o°* -,* 



V* 





















J' %. 







s 



'W 



%: 












"% 






.'•-S 



V 



* ,yi 




Sag HjTjrc.Buttre. 



/z-z^-JZ 



^^(^^ 



THE 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



OF 



MILES P. SQUIER, D. D. 



LATE PROFESSOR OP INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY, 
BELOIT COLLEGE, WISCONSIN. 



WITH AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 



EDITED AND SUPPLEMENTED 



BY REV. JAMES R. BOYD. 



FROM THE PRESS OF 

R. L. ADAMS & SON, 
GENEVA, N. Y. 






v 5 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 



A few days only before the venerable subject of the ensu- 
ing memoir closed so peacefully his mortal career, I was sum- 
moned to his bedside to listen to his request that the papers 
now contained in this volume, besides those on the Being of 
God and on Moral Government, which will appear in another 
volume, should come under my editorial charge, and be pre- 
sented to the public in due order and form. 

The facts detailed in the autobiography, concerning the 
early settlement and Evangelization of Western New York, 
cannot fail to be deeply interesting to the residents of that 
part of the State ; while the able papers upon European 
topics, the result of thoughtful observation upon men and 
things when abroad, will command, it is believed, both care- 
ful and remunerative perusal. 

On the whole, the volume seems to be adapted not only to 
preserve the memory of an eminently useful servant of Christ, 
but to stimulate to activity in the cause of Christian educa- 
tion, and also to awaken profound thought upon some of the 
more difficult problems of theological and philosophical 
study. 

The Editor feels constrained to offer an apology to all 
those who have written the kind and excellent letters of sym- 
pathy, embraced in the following memoir, for taking the lib- 
erty of exposing said letters, or extracts from them, to the 
public eye, since they were written with no expectation of 
such use being made of them. He w ould not have done so, 
if he had not regarded them as perfectly worthy of the place 
here assigned them, and of the writers. They also seemed to 
him to possess the greater value, as free expressions of honest 
sentiment, from the fact that they were written without refer- 
ence to future publication. 

Geneva, K Y. J. R. B. 



CONTENTS. 



PAET I. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND SUPPLEMENT. 

Chapter I. — Parentage and Early Life. 

Chapter II. — Missionary Tour in Western New York. 

Chapter III.— Pastorate in Buffalo, N. Y. 

Chapter IV. — Relation to Auburn Theological Seminary. 

Chapter V. — Relation to the Western Agency of the American 

Home Missionary Society. 
Chapter VI. — Relation to the Geneva Lyceum. 
Chapter VII. — Connection with Beloit College. 
Chapter VIII.— Visit to Europe. 
Chapter IX. — Contributions to the Press. 
Chapter X. — Intellectual, Social, and Religious Character. 
Chapter XI.— His Last Days. 



CONTENTS. 



PAET II. 

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 

I. 

TEN LECTURES SUGGESTED BY A VISIT IN EUROPE. 

1. Geneva and the Evangelical Alliance, including an Address 

on the American Question. 

2. The American Meeting of the Alliance. 

3. Italy — the Source of its Regeneration. 

4. France and its Emperor. 

5. England and its Queen. 

6. Dr. Pusey at Oxford. 

7. The Attitude of Christian Europe on the American Question. 

8. The Future of Europe. 

9. Europe as Contrasted with America. 

10. Prognosis of the Future of Empires. 

II. 

THREE LECTURES AT BELOIT COLLEGE. 

I. Highest Usefulness. 
II. Self-Control. 
III. Social Responsibility. 

III. 

TWO DISCOURSES. 

I. The Way of Salvation. 

11. God is Light. 

IV. 

ESSAYS AND REVIEWS — THEOLOGICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL. 

I. The Mystery ; or, Evil and God. In three numbers. 

II. Review of Dr. Bushnell on Nature and the Supernatural. 

III. Review of Dr. Orville Dewey's Lowell Lectures. 

IV. Free- Will : A Criticism on Dr. Whedon, and on Dr. H. B. 

Smith. 
V. Doctrine of the Spirit's Influence. 



PART I. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND SUPPLEMENT. 



CHAPTER I. 

In the summer of 1846, the subject of this memoir, 
drew up a brief sketch of some of the more important 
acts and events of his life, in the hope that they might 
be interesting to the circle of his family friends who 
should survive him ; and also for the purpose of recall- 
ing to his own mind the ways of Divine mercy in which 
he had been conducted, that he might confide the more 
strongly in the providence and grace of God during the 
remainder of his earthly pilgrimage. 

In April, 1863, a lecture was prepared and read by 
him before the Geneva Literary and Scientific Associa- 
tion, entitled, " Reminiscences in the Ecclesiastical His- 
tory of the State of New York," relating chiefly to his 
own experience and observations. 

As these two documents, together with a brief journal 
of a Tour in Europe, furnish matter for a large portion 
of the following memoir, it will have the freshness and 
charm of an autobiography. So far as may be expedient, 



8 PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE. 

the lamented and venerated subject of it, shall address 
us in his own language, and in the first person. In re- 
spect to his parentage and early life, he thus writes : — 

I. PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE. 

"I was born, in Cornwall, Vermont, May 4th, 1792 ; 
being the second son and child of Wait and Hannah 
Squier. My parents were of English descent, and na- 
tives of Berkshire Co., Mass. My father was the third 
son of Andrew Squier, of Lanesboro, Mass., through 
whom the family is traced to Waterbury, and that re- 
gion in Connecticut. My mother's maiden name was 
Hannah Powell : she was the fourth daughter of Miles 
Powell, whose name I inherit. He was a man of some 
distinction in his day, and the Colonel of a regiment of 
Berkshire Militia, in the well-known Bennington battle 
in the war of the Revolution : that beginning of victo- 
ries in behalf of the American standard, which had so 
much influence on the great issue pending, and on the 
liberties of the world." 

" The first year of my life was one of feebleness, but 
through parental assiduity I attained to a good consti- 
tution and a vigorous childhood. I was early sent to the 
district school, and at the age of five years could read 
quite well in easy lessons. I had attained to the ordina- 
ry wisdom of the common school of that day, at the age 
of fourteen years, and was, in May, at the age of four- 
teen, removed to the Academy at Micldlebury, Vermont ; 
and one year from the next August, entered the College 
at that place, as a member of the Freshman Class, hav- 
ing obtained the premium for proficiency in Greek lit- 
erature in the Academy. I came to Middlebury to enter 



PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL MINISTRY. 9 

the Academy, as I now recollect, on the day of the great 
eclipse of the sun, 1806, and entered College in August, 
1807. My premium was ' Watts on the Mind,' and to 
that fact and work do I trace a predilection for the class 
of studies on which it treats. Much of my junior year 
in college I traveled, on account of ill health, induced, 
perhaps, by too great application to study. I took the 
philosophical oration as my appointment both at the 
senior exhibition and on graduating in August, 1811.' 

" My Christian hope dates from the autumn of junior 
year, in 1809, in a period of great spiritual refreshing, 
both in the town and college. My first evidences of a 
right state of heart were in a sweet submission to and 
acquiescence in the will of God as a righteous sovereign, 
and an overcoming sense of the ineifable glory and ex- 
cellency . of His perfections, and the righteousness of 
His ways, and the suitableness of His expedients of 
mercy by the Gospel." 

II. PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL MINISTRY. 

"I entered the Theological Seminary at Andover, 
Mass., in the autumn of 1811, and pursued a full three 
years' course of study for the Gospel ministry. I was 
present at the ordination of the first missionaries of the 
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 
(A. B. C. F. M.,) at Salem, Mass., viz.: Newell, Hall, 
Judson, Nott, and Rice : a very impressive and instruc- 
tive day. Three of them long since failed from the liv- 
ing on earth, and the otjier two with but i feeble hold on 
life.' "* 

" My commission to preach the Gospel, dates from the 

* Judson died 1850. 



10 ENTRANCE UPON THE GOSPEL MINISTRY. 

spring of 1814. My full term at Andover extended to 
the autumn of that year, and closed in the Anniver- 
sary of that year with two dissertations, — one in the de- 
partment of pulpit eloquence on i Affectation in Preach- 
ers,' and the other in the department of Christian The- 
ology. 

" On leaving the Seminary and its hallowed and en- 
deared associations, I fulfilled an engagement previously 
made, of eight weeks' supply of the pulpit of the Con- 
gregational Society of Oxford, in Worcester Co., Mass.; 
it was a pleasant, improving, profitable period. I then 
returned to my friends in Vermont, and found the con- 
gregation of the City of Vergennes, five miles from my 
father's house, waiting to engage me. I tarried with 
that affectionate and agreeable people, until the spring 
of 1815, when my thoughts were turned westward, by 
an application from the Directors of the ' Young Peo- 
ples' Missionary Society of Western Neiv YorlcJ endorsed 
by Dr. Porter, of Andover, and his urgent request, that, 
if other engagements would at all admit of it, I would 
not fail to go. It was for an exploring mission, through 
the more unsettled portions of Western New York, and 
the forming of auxiliaries in the principal villages and 
towns, for strengthening the Society then new, and 
whose first missionary I was." 



MISSIONARY TOUR IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 11 



CHAPTER II. 

MISSIONARY TOUR IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 

" The settlement commenced during the ninth decade 
of the last century. A few families only resided west of 
Utica in the State, in 1788. In 1790, Ontario county, 
which then embraced all west of Cayuga Lake, num- 
bered about one thousand inhabitants. In ten years 
they had become 100,000, and in 1810, 250,000. The 
settlements, being chiefly from New England and East- 
ern New York, brought with them the religious associa- 
tions to which they had been accustomed. In 1805 the 
Presbytery of Geneva was formed, embracing nearly all 
the region under review, being cut off from that of 
Oneida, by a line running south from the lake of that 
name. In 1810 the Synod of Albany divided this Pres- 
bytery into three, instituting those of Onondaga and 
Cayuga, and fixing the eastern boundary of the Geneva 
Presbytery at Cayuga Lake, and extending thence as 
before, to the western boundary of the State, and from 
Pennsylvania to Lake Ontario. By this body was I or- 
dained to the Gospel ministry, and installed pastor of 
the Presbyterian Congregation at Buffalo, May 3d, 1816, 
and I am recorded on its minutes, for that period, and 
am now the earliest named there, among the living 
members of that body. 

I first met the Board of Directors in Oneida county. 



12 MISSIONARY TOUR IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 

The Rev. Samuel F. Snowden was chairman. He had 
been pastor at New Hartford, and afterward preached at 
Sackett's Harbor, and died at Brownville in the same 
county. Rev. H. Dwight, then pastor at Utica, Rev. 
Noah Coe, pastor at New Hartford, and Rev. John 
Frost, pastor at Whitesboro, and others, were members 
of the Board. These were no common men ; well cal- 
culated, in the' instep of the country, to take charge of 
the cause of missions, and the work of evangelization in 
the regions beyond. Rev. Moses Gillett, also, was pastor 
at Rome; and the Rev. Dr. Azel Backus was Presi- 
dent of Hamilton College, then bringing forward its 
first class for graduation, and Rev. Dr. Asahel Norton, 
was pastor of the Village Church in Clinton. i Par no- 
lile fratrumf — a noble band of brothers, worthy of the 
post they held in the forefront of all the west, in the be- 
ginning of days, and of a place in history for all time 
afterward. Dr. Backus was a man quite ' sui- generis.' 
He could laugh or cry, tell stories or preach sermons, — 
abounding in wit and humor ; he was sage, saintly, and 
Christ-like. He had a warm heart and a noble soul. 
As I called at his gate, on my way, he said, ' I am glad 
you are going, my young friend, but you will see that 
that will make your heart ache before you get back ; the 
Lord deliver you from the paw of the bear, and the teeth 
of the lion, and bring you back in safety :' and with his 
blessing I turned toward the wilderness. Passing 
through Rome, to Camden, where the godly and now 
sainted Henry Smith was afterwards the pastor, I 
preached my first missionary sermon there, and on the 
next Sabbath at Williamstown, taking the floor of a 



MISSIONARY TOUR IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 13 

newly raised barn for our meeting place, and its over- 
stretching beams for a sounding board. I was hospita- 
bly entertained in a recently built log-house, where a 
blanket was the only partition between my own and the 
lodging apartment of the family. Thence I went by 
marked trees and a bridle path twelve miles to Mexico, 
and on to Oswego, crossing the river on a scow or raft, 
and preaching on the Sabbath, in the second loft of a 
store, as the most eligible locality which that incipient 
city, now of goodly churches and congregations of thirty 
thousand people, could furnish. Thence the route of 
the lone missionary lay by marked trees again, westward, 
to Adam's Basin, on the easterly entrance of Sodus Bay, 
where now is the fine flourishing town and farming re- 
gion of Wolcott ; and thence by the Block House, now 
Clyde, through Junius to Geneva, then a village of one 
thousand inhabitants. This seemed like emerging into 
daylight. Society had begun here. The church had 
taken form, and the good Henry Axtell was pastor, and 
I hitched my missionary horse at his gate and waited on 
him for further instructions. Mr. A., afterward Dr. A., 
by a well-deserved honor from Middlebury College, was 
a Director of the Society under whose patronage I la- 
bored, and I had letters to him in this behalf. He was 
the first minister of the Gospel I had seen, since leaving 
Rome, and he knew well how to enter into sympathy 
with the missionary life. He was installed pastor here 
in 1812, and continued seventeen years in the laborious 
discharge of the duties of his calling till in 1829, he fell 
asleep in Jesus, aged 45. Thence, after much consola- 
tion with the good people of Geneva, my route lay 



14 MISSIONARY TOUR IX WESTERN NEW YORK. 

through Canandaigua, to Rochester, preaching as groups 
of people could be gathered. 

"Rochester then contained only a few dwellings, a 
mill, and a school house in which I preached, lodging at 
the house of a Mr. Elisha Ely, brother of Henry Ely of 
that place. Thence I took the Ridge Road to Lewiston, 
and there spent next Sabbath : visited the Falls on the 
Canada side, and stood alone a stranger in a strange 
land, under Table Rock, and under the skirt of the over- 
flowing water, while the heavens gathered blackness, and 
heavy peals of thunder were just audible, amidst the 
continual roar around me ; thence to Buffalo, crossing 
over at Black Rock, to the house of one who became a 
fast Christian friend during all my residence on the 
frontier — Deacon Nathaniel Sill, than whom, very few 
whom I have met have more excellencies of character, 
or in whose families I have enjoyed more of the solaces 
of christian society and friendship. 

' " At Canandaigua an incident of some interest oc- 
curred. My horse strayed from his enclosure, and I was 
detained till after the Sabbath. The Rev. Mr. Torrey, a 
Unitarian, was then the minister at that place. He had 
been ordained in Boston, and there somewhat anom- 
alously installed over the congregation of Canandaigua . 
He was a conscientious man, and then veiy ill at ease, 
with the sentiments which he had entertained. He was 
indeed all afloat as to doctrinal views, and quite appealed 
to me for relief and assurance. He said, i Every time 
I visit my friends at the east, I find them farther and 
farther away from the peculiar teachings of the Gospel, 
and less and less depending for light upon it. I do not 



MISSIONARY TOUR IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 15 

know but it is Calvinism or Deism after all. I can 
not preach Unitarianism. to my people any longer, 
and I don't feel fit to preach anything just at present, 
and,' he added, ' you must stay with me, and preach for 
me on the Sabbath.' This I did, both morning and 
afternoon, and we had frequent and long conversations 
on the doctrines of grace, and the subject matter of 
Revelation, and on the next Sabbath after, he advised 
his congregation of his doctrinal difficulties, and that he 
could preach for them as a Unitarian minister no more. 
He, from that time, disclaimed what was technically 
called ' liberal Christianity,' and lived afterward and died 
in the orthodox faith." 



16 PASTORATE IN BUFFALO. 



CHAPTER III. 

PASTORATE IN BUFFALO, N. Y. 

" At Buffalo, I was directed to the house of Mr. Amos 
Callender, another elder of the church, whose uninter- 
rupted counsel and friendship it was my privilege to en- 
joy. I spent two weeks in B. preaching in the unfin- 
ished saloon of the largest tavern then in the place, and 
since known as the Mansion House. On my return 
east in fulfillment of my mission, a written invitation 
was handed me, signed by a large number of the prin- 
cipal citizens of Buffalo, requesting my return with a 
view to settle among them, as their pastor, and guaran- 
teeing a competent salary if I should. I promised to 
take it into consideration and inform them. I returned 
through the older settlements, and organized auxiliaries 
to the Society in whose employ I was. 

"This church was constituted on the 2d of Feb., 
1812, (consisting of twenty-seven members,) by the 
Rev. Thaddeus Osgood, the man ' whose praise is in the 
Gospel throughout all the churches.' For a few months 
after this company of disciples and the families associat- 
ed with them, enjoyed the privileges of a church state, 
and the occasional labors of the Missionaries of the Cross. 
But in the following September they were scattered 
abroad by reason of the desolations of the late war on 
this frontier; and did not meet again until July 15th, 



PASTORArE IN BUFFALO. 17 

1815. This was but a few weeks previous to my first 
visit to this place, which was in August of that year." 

" I returned to Clinton in season for the commence- 
ment in Hamilton College, and the first, if I remember 
rightly, of that now honored and veteran seat of learn- 
ing ; and here I must relate another characteristic anec- 
dote of its good-hearted President. I called on him 
again with some account of travels, and personal history, 
and showed him my invitation to Buffalo, and he said, 
' Yes, yes, you must go to Buffalo !' I remarked that I 
thought of accepting a Tutorship at Middlebury College 
for a year and then going. ' No, that won't do,' he re- 
plied. ' I'd rather never have a minister, than to wait a 
year for him. You must go home and see your friends 
awhile, and return this fall, and if you won't, I'll send 
right off to Andover and get a better man for them and 
cut you out, and you never shall go.' 

" My report, on surrendering my commission, advocat- 
ed the location of missionaries, and assisting congregations 
in their support as a more economical and successful 
method of missions, than that of itinerary labors, till 
then pursued. The report was published by the Board, 
and quite extensively circulated in the periodical press 
of that time, and I am happy to observe that the work 
of ' Home Missions' has since taken on the type very 
much, in our country, which was then suggested. 

" My return to friends in New Haven, Vfc., lay by the 
home of my venerated friend, the Rev. Jedediah Bush- 
nell, of Cornwall, of that State, and he, as a veteran 
missionary himself, and a pioneer in the work in West- 
ern New York, as far as Canandaigua and the Bloom- 
2 



18 PASTORATE IN BUFFALO. 

fields, must know all things concerning rue, and how the 
cause prospered. He, too, was decided in the matter of 
my return to Buffalo. ' Oh, yes, you must go there. If 
you were my boy, I would rather have you settle in 
Buffalo than Boston. You will be more of a man and 
do more good ; go home for a couple of weeks, and 
then pack up your case of books, and hitch to that mis- 
sionary horse, and journey on thirty-five miles a day, 
and preach the everlasting Gospel to them.' I did so, 
and in the spring of 1816, the members of the Presbytery 
of Geneva, after a horse ride of more than one hundred 
miles over logs, and through mud, on the 3d of May in- 
stituted my pastoral relation to that people. 

" This was a little over two years after the burning of 
Buffalo, in the war with England of 1812, and a busier 
place was never seen. But the people had got tired of 
living without the Gospel, and craved a return to the 
habits and behests of Christian civilization. The des- 
olations of the war had pleaded the cause of truth, and 
they sought repose from its scenes and its wickedness in 
the accents of mercy and peace by the Gospel. They 
were then a peculiarly malleable people. They were 
willing to be taught and directed, and were willing to 
regard the Sabbath, the Sanctuary, and the institutions 
and claims of religion, as their grand antidote from the 
evils which they suffered and feared. Thus they were 
easily wrought into the habits of a Christian community, 
and the Word of God in a good degree had free course 
among them and was magnified." 

From the half-century discourse delivered Feb. 2d, 
1862, by Rev. Walter Clarke, D. D., now pastor of the 



. PASTORATE IN BUFFALO. 19 

same church in the city of Buffalo, we learn that the in- 
teresting ceremony of inducting into office this first 
pastor of the first church of the then infant town, took 
place, for want of better accommodations, in a new 
barn which had just been raised and covered but never 
used, and the kind owner made it a sanctuary before it 
could become a hostelry. " Extempore benches were 
made, a little platform built, and Ransom's barn was for 
a time a temple which neither God nor His people de- 
spised." The ordination sermon was preached by Rev. 
Dr. Axtell, of Geneva. Dr. Clarke observes that Mr. 
Squier, " having received charge of the congregation, 
devoted himself at once to his proper work, preached 
sermons, and delivered addresses, and published articles 
exhorting the people to all due endeavors to enforce or- 
der, and set a curb on vice, and erect a virtuous, loyal, 
and happy community. The people valued his labors 
and were prompt to second them. They formed a so- 
ciety to promote public morals, engaged to abstain them- 
selves, and so far as they had influence or power, to 
hinder others from Sabbath breaking and the vices to 
which it so commonly leads. The next Sabbath all the 
stores in the village were closed. Eight persons joined 
the church in 1816 ; the next year thirty-seven, and the 
next thirty-four were added ; of these were two who en 
tered and honored the Christian ministry. The next 
year twenty-two. persons joined the church, one of whom 
was Henry Hoisington, afterward the well-known 
missionary, a diligent minister and thorough scholar, 
whose memory and works remain." 

During his pastorate in Buffalo, of less than eight 



20 PASTORATE IN BUFFALO. 

years, Mr. Squier received into church fellowship one 
hundred and fifty-eight persons. 

The Rev. Dr. A. T. Chester in his poem, read at the 
semi-centennial celebration of the First Church, in ad- 
dressing this mother church, thus happily introduces the 
subject of this memoir : — 

" The past is all tliine own. Look back and see 
How graciously thy God hath dealt with thee. 
Pastors have served thee, faithful, pure of blame, 
Worthy to wear that consecrated name. 
Squier, of keen mind, and philosophic cast, 
Thy patient shepherd in the days long past, 
Now solves the problem, ' Where does ill begin?' 
Gives God the glory and to Man the sin." 

" We had (writes Dr. Squier) a way of doing things 
in Buffalo that was somewhat peculiar. We, of all 
names as Christians, resolved to hold together until we 
got able to separate. We did not expect our minister 
to dwell much in advocacy of sects, but to give himself 
to the great, essential verities of the Gospel, and the 
people worked together with him for the advancement 
of the common cause. The Episcopalians were the 
first to hive out. Bishop Hobart thought it was time, 
in about 1818, or 19, to set up their banners, and came 
for that purpose. I gave him my pulpit for the first 
Sabbath, and we all heard him to edification : and he 
and his people afterwards met on their own appoint- 
ments. The Baptists were next in time, and we served 
them likewise, dismissing a member or two, from our 
communion, as being more at home with them : and 
after that the Methodists ; with but this difference, that 



MARRIAGE. 21 

we discharged a member of our session for their assist- 
ance, and because we thought he would make a better 
Methodist than Presbyterian. These movements were 
all made in concert and with mutual understanding in 
accommodation to the predilections of worshipers, and 
thus laid the foundation of a union religious service, 
which was weekly held in the different congregations, 
alternately or in rotation. This was for a long time con- 
tinued, and contributed largely to that union of spirit, 
and consent of testimony, which characterized the early 
rise of Christian institutions and communions in Buffalo. 
My pastorship there continued about eight years until 
my connection with the Auburn Seminary as financial 
agent, and afterward with the cause of Home Missions, 
and at length with the College of Beloit at the west. 
My successors at Buffalo, in preaching the Gospel in the 
different denominations, were largely men of God, and 
together have contributed to that solidity and strength 
of Christian institutions in that city which is quite ob- 
servable, if not peculiar. 

" I was married to Catherine Seymour, of Rome, 1ST. Y., 
Feb. 22d, 1820 ; and have found her a help-meet in 
my work, and one in whom my soul could always con- 
fide. The failure of her health, and my own need of 
relief from the pressure of so large a charge, and the 
many responsibilities which crowded on me, from the 
state of the surrounding country, led me to resign my 
position, with a view of spending a year or two in travel, 
and residence at some seat of Theological Science. 

"In the spring of' 1817 I first attended the General 
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church at Philadelphia, 



22 NIAGARA PRESBYTERY. 

as a Commissioner from the Presbytery of Geneva ; and 
In company with Dr. Axtell, and others. 

"In 1818 I was set off, by the Synod of Geneva, with 
two other ministers, Rev. Hugh Wallis, and Rev. M. 
Tuller, not then pastors, into a new Presbytery, — Niag- 
ara Presbytery, — which was the origin of what is now 
called the Buffalo Presbytery, and one of the original 
germs of the present Synod of Genesee." 



AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 23 



CHAPTER IV. 

RELATION TO AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 

" The Theological Seminary at Auburn was the child 
of the Synod of Geneva. Dr. Axtell was Moderator of 
the Synod when, in 1818, in its sessions at Rochester, 
the institution was overtured and provisionally projected 
and determined on. Some things respecting this have 
not been written, and I dwell upon them for a moment. 
The Bill, as overtured to the Synod, contemplated an 
Academico-Theological institution, taking young men 
from the plough and the work shop, and in a term of 
some four years fitting them for the ministry, without 
the advantages of the College course. To this some of 
us were opposed : my own Presbytery without excep- 
tion. We had had the privilege of a full course, and we 
claimed it for the Seminary and its students. But after a 
discussion of two days, the vote went against us, and a 
committee of twenty-one members, from different por- 
tions of Synod and Presbyteries east of us, was appoint- 
ed to give it effect and establish the institution. As 
Buffalo was a point of some importance, my name was 
put on the committee ; and at our meeting in Canandai- 
gua in June following, I was happy to meet Dr. Davis, 
then President of Hamilton College, as a member of the 
committee, and to learn that his views fully accorded 
with my own as to the plan of the Institution. These 



24 AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 

views were fully and successfully laid before the com- 
mittee, and a vote was passed by it requesting a special 
meeting of Synod to amend their minute and make the 
Seminary appropriately theological, and anticipating for 
its students the full academic and collegiate course of 
study. This was done by Synod in August following, 
at Auburn, and the stake stuck there ; but the recollec- 
tion of the anxiety and the struggle it cost to place it 
there on the basis of usefulness it now occupies, has al- 
m ost passed from the minds of the living. Distinguished 
men have filled its chairs, and many sons of the church 
have gone forth to honor it, and never more than now. 
With its full corps of instructors, and its ample accom- 
modations and its deep hold of the affections of the 
churches, it promises much for Western New York not 
only, but for the destitute and needy of every land and 
clime. 

" On resigning my pastoral charge at B., I was re- 
quested to become the financial agent of the Theological 
Seminary at Auburn, and much against my previous 
views and inclinations, was induced, in consideration of 
its pressing importance, to undertake the work. In this 
work I spent more than a year, mainly in securing the 
endowment of two professorships, and the getting of a 
competent Library. My agency led me to spend a win- 
ter in the city of New York ; and there in the work my 
health failed, and I was two months sick, and my gen- 
eral health much impaired for a long time after ; indeed, 
it never since has been so firm as before." 

Among the papers of Dr. Squier is found a form of 
letter, which seems to be the first draft of those which 



AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 25 

he sent to various gentlemen of property whom he in- 
tended afterwards to visit for the purpose of securing 
one thousand dollar subscriptions by personal applica- 
tion. It is a strong, manly, and well written letter, 
showing the great necessity for the endowment of the 
Theological Seminary to assist in meeting the wants of 
the country and of the world. In that communication 
he thus writes : — " My plan is to find twelve men, who 
will be willing to put in $1000 apiece and complete the 
work — take up the stock in this bank, and get their in- 
terest in the love of doing good in this world and in the 
awards of our Father's kingdom hereafter. And now, 
dear sir, the question I have to ask is whether you will 
be one among the twelve, and be responsible for one- 
twelfth of the sum, provided I can get the rest of it, 
and put our Seminary on a permanent footing as to 
funds, to diffuse its blessings down upon our congrega- 
tions, or do its portion toward supplying the world with 
able and faithful ministers till time shall end. I wish 
you to carry the subject in prayer to God for direction, 
and to decide with the good of souls, and the day of 
millennial glory before you. Think how the Lord has 
blessed your industry, and how many pieces of property 
you have out of which you could raise this, and not take 
a single comfort from yourself or family. Think that in 
all probability, you will not, during your whole life, have 
another Theological Seminary to endow, and whether 
you are not willing to become so much poorer in this 
world, for the sake of the good, which, in the hands of 
God, we hope this gratuity would do ; and then you 
would vastly encourage this particular effort, and besides 



26 AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 

I know not in how many ways, God may make it up to 
you. ' Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt 
find it after many days.' ' The liberal soul shall be made 
fat,' " &c. 



HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 27 



CHAPTER V. 

RELATIVE TO THE WESTERN AGENCY OF THE AMERICAN HOME 
MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 

" In the autumn of 1825 I returned in feeble health 
to my father's in New Haven, Vt., and spent some two 
or three months in agricultural pursuits, quite to the 
benefit of my health : supplied the congregation of 
Springfield, Vt., some two months, and the rest of the 
winter at Bennington, Vt., in the congregation made 
vacant, by Rev. A. Peters accepting the appointment of 
Secretary of the United Domestic, now Home Missionary, 
Society. At the solicitation of that Society and of the 
Rev. Messrs. Axtell and Dwight of Geneva, I undertook 
the Secretaryship and Agency of the Western Agency 
of the American Home Missionary Society at Geneva, 
and removed to this place in the spring of 1826, and en- 
tered on the work. It embraced the supervision of 
Home Missions within the then seventeen westerly 
counties in this State, the planting of new congregations, 
the sustaining of feeble ones, and the securing of aid 
from those able to help, as well as the gaining of an over- 
plus of means for the more destitute portions of the 
country, in aid of the general treasury of the Society. 
In this work I spent seven or eight years, sustaining on 
an average about seventy to eighty missionaries on our 
own field, defraying expenses of the Agency, and pay- 



28 HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 

ing over to the Parent Treasury an annual surplus of 
from two thousand to four thousand dollars above the 
aggregate expense on this field." 



In May, 1851. Mr. S. received a certificate of election as 
a Director of the American Home Missionary Society. 
It was accompanied by the followiDg complimentary 
letter : 

New York, May 19tli, 1851. 
Rev. Miles P. Squier — Dear Sir : — 

I have tlie pleasure to forward you the foregoing certificate 
of your election as a Director of the American Home Missionary 
Society. As in times past we have been favored with your most 
valued co-operation in carrying forward the good work committed 
to us, so now, dwelling where so recently was a wilderness that 
has been turned into a garden of God, we shall none the less 
prize whatever your wise head and liberal heart, and large expe- 
rience in Home Missionary affairs can bring to our aid in complet- 
ing what is yet to be done in this land for the honor of our Divine 
Master. The strength of Israel be on your right hand in your 
new post of duty. Dr. Erskine Mason we laid on Friday last 
beneath the clods of the valley. What a loss to Zion ! My 
heart bleeds. 

Affectionately Yours, 

Milton Badger, Sec. 



GENEVA LYCEUM. 29 



CHAPTER VI. 

RELATION TO THE GENEVA LYCEUM. 

"In 1831 I founded the Geneva Lyceum. The Ge- 
neva Female Seminary was previously founded on my 
premises, and generally under my care, and I had built 
a house for its accommodation. This latter institution 
long and greatly flourished under the charge of Mrs. 
Elizabeth Ricord. In it commenced the great revival 
of religion in Western New York in 1831, so well 
known : it raised up many valuable females, pious and 
well trained, for society and the Kingdom of God. 

" The duties devolving on me as Secretary and Agent 
of Home Missions, together with an acquaintance other- 
wise extended, as a minister of the Gospel, with the 
state of classical education in Western New York, and 
the need of further efforts to train up pious young men 
for the Gospel ministry, and to give them a full, thorough 
and appropriate training in the outset of their classical 
course, suggested the thought of establishing this Insti- 
tution. The design was formed, in the hope of fully 
meeting the plan of study contemplated by the American 
Education Society and its branches, in the appropriately 
academical course of the student. Believing that much 
in respect to the eminence of his future attainments, and 
usefulness, would depend on the views entertained by 
him, and the habits of mind and heart he should form? 



30 GENEVA LYCEUM. 

in the commencement of his career as a scholar, it was 
thought that more attention should be given, more im- 
portance attached to, and more privileges furnished for 
this part of his course than had hitherto been given. 
Signs of a desire in some quarters, to abridge the course 
of study, and hasten young men into the ministry with- 
out due preparation, urged the execution of the above 
design, in the hope of contributing some influence at 
least in the right direction. 

"In fulfillment of the above object, after a wide sur- 
vey of the country for a location, and much reflection, 
the premises of the late Dr. Henry Axtell, of this place , 
were purchased in the month of May, 1831. 

" This spot was selected as being in the midst of a 
community, intelligent, refined, moral and Christian, 
whose influences and privileges, would be favorable to 
the pupils of such an institution, and adapted to its ob- 
jects, containing and likely to contain a number of liter- 
ary gentlemen, who would bring to the Institution 
incidental instruction, and fostering patronage : — a sit- 
uation central in Western New York, easy of access, 
and in itself healthful, rural, pleasant, retired, command- 
ing a good land and water prospect, and combining the 
privileges of both village and country. 

"In September, 1831, arrangements were made with 
the Rev. Eleazer Lathrop, then pastor of the Presby- 
terian congregation of Elniira, to open and take charge 
of the institution as its Principal in instruction, and em- 
ploying the Rev. Asa Messer, of this place, then teach- 
ing a select school, as his assistant. 

"October 3d, 1831, the Institution was opened by the 



GENEVA LYCEUM. 31 

above gentlemen, with reasonably favorable prospects, 
and the character, and objects of young men entering, 
were to a large extent such as coincided with the chief 
design of the Institution." 

In consequence of the failure of Mr. Lathrop's 
health before the close of the year, the Rev. Justus W. 
French, of Hardwick, Vt., was elected in his place, and 
took charge of the Institution in October, 1832, and re- 
mained in charge of it till July, 1837, when the number 
of students in attendance was nearly one hundred. 

In the spring and summer of 1832, the "South Hall" 
was erected at an expense of about $3000, and at the 
laying of its corner stone an able address was delivered 
by Dr. Squier, the design of which was to show that 
knowledge is the natural aliment of the mind : that it is 
indispensable to the exercise of the rational powers, to 
the growth of intellect, and to the cultivation of the re- 
ligious affections : that without it mind is of no use, and 
creation without an object. He illustrated, at length, 
the position that all knowledge is summarily embraced 
under two heads : — the knowledge of God and of His 
works, and that these comprehensive departments of 
knowledge are associated in the relation of cause and 
effect. He also showed that knowledge is essential to 
the formation of character and to preparation for duty ; 
and further, that at no previous period of the world had 
the demands for the general diffusion of knowledge and 
for mental culture been more imperative. 

" The gates of the temple of knowledge," said he, in 
his address, " should be thrown wide open. The differ- 
ent professions should be filled with a high order of in- 



32 GENEVA LYCEUM. 

tellect, and the genius and talents of the world be made 
tributary to the work of love. The resources of the 
combined intellect and wisdom of men should be 
brought to bear with unwonted momentum and effect 
upon the emancipation of the race from the curse of sin 
into the grace and liberty of the Gospel of Christ." 

In speaking of the design for which the Institution 
was founded, and of the results that were to be sought 
after in its future operations, the enlightened and Chris- 
tian spirit of the founder is clearly discerned. The con- 
cluding pail of the address is particularly worthy of 
preservation, as an indication of the high and sacred 
l^urposes to which he devoted his talents, his property, 
and his influence. It is also worthy of preservation as 
showing the legitimate and the most important and ap- 
propriate design of all institutions of learning : — 

" We desire that this Institution may harmonize with 
the redeeming providence of God. We would help to 
cultivate some immortal minds for God and the Church, 
for society and the world ; we would contribute our 
share of influence in concert with other institutions of 
learning and religion in the land and world, in repelling 
ignorance and sin, and striving together for the univer- 
sal diffusion of knowledge and righteousness among 
men. 

" In prosecution of this high aim would we erect this 
intended edifice, whose corner stone we now lay, and we 
consecrate the building and the Institution to Christ and the 
Church, to the cause of truth, learning and religion, and ask 
for the undertaking, the protection, guidance, and gra- 
cious smiles of that God, who c is light, and in whom is 



GENEVA LYCEUM. 33 

no darkness at all.' May His favoring providence 
attend us in its prosecution ; may no evil befall the work 
or them that work upon it, and may our design prosper, 
and obtain favor in the eyes of them that love Zion. 
May this Institution, now in its infancy, be nurtured by 
a kind Providence. May it not only be a seat of the 
muses, and a nursery of sound science, but a consecrated 
spot on which the Spirit of God shall often descend in 
genial reviving influences, when intellect shall be sanc- 
tified, and immortal mind shall be endowed for the re- 
sponsibilities of this age, of the church, and the world. 
May many sons of the Church go forth from it, in suc- 
cessive years, who shall eventually c preach righteousness 
in the great congregation,' and convey the knowledge 
of Christ crucified to those who l sit in darkness and see 
no light.' May distant heathen nations feel its influence, 
and Christian lands be blessed, by its streams. May it 
rear up intellect for every profession and useful depart- 
ment of life ; and may this Institution, these buildings, 
and such others as future wants shall authorize, these 
grounds, and fields, and groves, so pleasant to the eye, 
have the blessing from on high, and long be sacred to 
the cause of learning and religion, sacred to the truth 
and service of the ever-living Jehovah, and to His name, 
to ' the Three that bear record in Heaven," — the Father, 
the Word, and the Holy Ghost, — be praise everlasting." 



At an Anniversary exhibition of the Lyceum, in the 

Presbyterian Church, July, 1833, Dr. Squier pronounced 

an Address, highly instructive, and full of wise Christian 

counsels ; and from it we learn the admirable influence 

3 



34 GENEVA LYCEUM. 

which the Institution was exerting and the cheering re- 
sults which it had already accomplished. He states, 
that of the seventy-four young gentlemen and youth 
connected with the Lyceum, the term then closing, 
sixty-eight had been pursuing a classical course, having 
the learned professions in view ; sixty were entertaining 
the hope of personal piety ; fifty-six were pursuing study 
with reference to the Gospel ministry. 

The admirable tone of the Addkess will be discov- 
ered in the following extracts : — 

"Take heed to your characters, to your bodies, to 
your souls. 

(1.) " ' A good name,' in the language of the wise 
man, ' is better than precious ointment.' Character is 
indeed everything. It is indispensable to usefulness or 
success in any valuable undertaking. An apostle sent 
the injunction to his own son in the faith, — 'Let no 
man despise thee.' Do nothing to forfeit the respect, 
the esteem, the confidence of your fellow men. From 
upright and honest principles, pursue upright and honest 
ends, — keeping conscience void of offence, toward God 
and toward men. Aim at consistency of character in 
everything, and be known and read of all, as the unde- 
viating friends of truth and virtue. You are young, — 
' flee youthful lusts.' Turn from the syren song of pleas- 
ure, under every form of seduction, and follow after 
righteousness, recollecting that, ' the end of the com- 
mandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good 
conscience, and of faith unfeigned.' " 

(2.) " Take care of these bodies. They are the case- 
ment of an immortal mind, its organ of communication, 



GENEVA LYCEUM. 35 

with the exterior universe around it ; its handmaid to 
duty, and usefulness, and the minister of its expansion 
and happiness." 

" In respect to most of you, we trust, that these bodies 
have become the temples of the Holy Ghost, and in re- 
spect to you all, we can but anticipate the day when you 
will yield them to Him, whose of right they are. Pre- 
serve them for the Master's use. Do nothing to induce 
disease, and bring on premature feebleness and decay. 
In the period of relaxation from study now allowed you, 
give yourselves up to cheerful, vigorous, healthful exer- 
ercise. Turn to the labors of the field, or the workshop 
or some other of the employments of active life, and be 
sure to return to us, if God permit, with the flush of 
health on your cheek, and a firmness of nerve, that will 
effectually resist the tendencies of sedentary habits." 

(3.) " Take heed to your souls. They are that im- 
mortal part, which comprises the sum, and stamps the 
value of your existence. ' Keep thy heart with all dil- 
igence, for out of it are the issues of life.' In leaving 
for a season your accustomed retreat of study, and of 
Christian privilege, you pass not from under the eye of 
God or get away from the responsibility of duty. The 
obligations of religion equally attend you, wherever you 
go, wherever you are. Be mindful of this, and let the 
conviction of it ever rest on your minds. You will be 
surrounded with temptations. The net will be spread 
for your feet. Be aware of this. Turn from the way of 
the destroyer. Avoid the avenues to sin. ' Shun even 
the appearance of evil' Are any of you destitute of a 
good hope in Jesus Christ ? To such, we can but again, 



36 GENEVA LYCEUM. 

as often before, commend a personal interest in the Sa- 
viour, as now your great concern. Flee at once to the 
stronghold in Zion. Let these powers, these attain- 
ments, your whole souls, your opportunities, your pros- 
pects of future influence and usefulness, be early, be 
now, baptized at the fount of forgiveness ; and in the 
School of Christ be trained for His service and His 
kingdom." 

" My young Christian friends, make the Bible the man 
of your counsel. By it seek to know and do the will of 
God. Let its precepts and its spirit take full possession 
of your souls. Though away from your wonted retreats 
of devotion, forget not that the vows of God are on 
you, — that the life of your religion depends veiy much 
on the faithful discharge of the duties of the closet. 
Neglect not the hour of prayer. Turn not away from 
the company of the pious, — forsake not the assemblies 
of God's people. Keep under the body. Let grace 
reign in you. Put wholly on the Lord Jesus. Let 
eveiy power, every attainment be sanctified. Keep in 
view the rest that remaineth, and strive ever after a 
growing meetness for it, so shall you fail not of the full 
reward of orace." 



As a further illustration of the high intellectual and 
religious character of Dr. Squier's mind, it would be un- 
just to withhold the following extract, though quite long, 
of an Address which he delivered August 4th, 1840, at 
the close of the ninth year of the Geneva Lyceum, upon 



GENEVA LYCEUM. 37 

a highly important subject, and which he has treated 
with masterly ability. The subject is, — 

" THE MEN WE WANT." 

" I would call up the necessities of the world in re- 
spect to well-directed, educated mind. 

" Beneficent influence, is very much in the combined 
ratio of force of intellect and goodness of heart. Intel- 
lectual strength, and right principles, must be united in 
the men of whom we speak. They must have sound 
minds and holy hearts. They must have drunk deep at 
the fountains of science, and have gone to the pool in 
Siloam too, for cleansing from sin. They must stand on 
the elevation of knowledge in our world, and receive 
the baptism of the Holy Ghost ; and to the watchword 
of Providence and the calls of duty, they must with 
their whole souls respond, — 'Here, Lord, am I, send me.' 
These are the men we want. This is the great desidera- 
tum of the age in doing its work ; this the living per- 
vading agency, imploringly called for, and I refer to 
some of the directions, from which the cry comes up, 
for the men I have characterized. 

I. THE RESEARCHES OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 

" True, much advancement is already made in this de- 
partment of knowledge, and its adaptation to the arts of 
life. But more, much more progress, in both respects, 
remains to be yet made. It is also conceded, that men 
with unsanctified hearts can investigate the laws and 
affinities of matter, and propound their discoveries intel- 
ligibly to others. And yet, more or less imperfection is 
liable to attend their researches, and their statements. 



38 GENEVA LYCEUM. 

They are wont to divorce the Creator from His works, 
and familiarize their disciples with a pantheistic phrase- 
ology, on the one hand, or the dialect of atheism on the 
other. Their hearts go not after God, and they do not 
recognize Him in the things He has made. Besides, 
shall not the sons of God appreciate the operation of His 
hand? There is affinity between the Creator and His 
works: there is relationship between truth in physics, 
and truth in morals. The good man sees God in the 
mechanism of the Universe, in its laws and adaptations, 
its magazines of blessing and of wrath. He loves ' him 
that begat,' and for his sake, that which is begotten. 
With the zest of affiliated friendship to God, he threads 
the labyrinths of nature, and brings out her reluctant 
mysteries. His heart sympathizes with his studies and 
happily guides them. He looks at physical truth, from 
a point of observation, and under aspects, and relations, 
peculiar to himself, and favoring the best results. He 
traces all to the intelligence and mighty hand of God, 
and speaks of it, in a dialect that honors him, and thus 
aids in giving popular and legitimate conviction of the 
presence and agency of God, 'in the things that are 
seen.' 

II. THE SAME NECESSITY EXISTS IN THE WALKS OF LITERATURE. 

" ' Let me write the ballads of a nation,' says one, 
'and I care not who makes its laws.' The periodical 
and permanent literature of a people have a vast influence 
over them for good or evil. The writings of Voltaire, 
and of other infidels of his day, did much to poison the 
mind, and corrupt the manners of France, and the Con- 



GENEVA LYCEUM. 39 

tinent ; to blot out conscience and send the world adrift 
without helm or compass. In respect to American lit- 
erature, this is a plastic age. Much that comes over 
sea is decidedly deleterious, and that which is poured 
forth so profusely from our own press, on criticism, 
poetry, politics and morals, and a variety of subjects of 
more or less general and permanent interest, is of a very 
mixed and anomalous character. Ours is a reading, 
busy, investigating age. It will have books, it will seek 
supply in every form of publication from the daily penny 
sheet, up to the stately volume. Greater solicitude 
should be felt on this subject by the wise and good. 
More minds of the first class should be at work, to sanc- 
tify the literature of our country and of the age ; to 
pour into works of taste and general reading, more that 
is evangelical ; to imbue the thoughts and leisure time 
of the community, with principles, and maxims, and as- 
sociations coincident with the integral elements of truth, 
and our real relations to God and each other. 

III. SEATS OF LEARNING. 

" These are sources of great and abiding influence and 
interest. Schools, colleges, and seminaries of profes- 
sional study, are fountains from which issue streams to 
gladden and refresh, or blight and destroy. Instructors 
in them are captains of hundreds and of thousands in 
the congregation of Israel. They teach those who are 
to teach the rest of men. They mould the minds and 
embody the influences which shall pervade society, and 
go down to coming generations. They should be em- 
inently wise and good men, and able to give to science 



40 GENEVA LYCEUM. 

and literature and thought, that which the necessities of 
the age demand. The draft here is large, and will be 
continual and increasing. Presidents, professors, and 
teachers, will be needed in all our professional, collegiate, 
and preparatory institutions through the breadth of the 
land, among the heathen and over the world ; and they 
should be deficient in no gifts of the intellect or the 
heart. They should be men of master minds, capable 
of forming the material under their hands to great and 
good results, and of leaving then* impression as the 
world's benefactors, on all coming time. 

IV. THE SAME REMARKS ARE IN PLACE, IX RESPECT TO THE 
LEARNED PROFESSIONS AS A WHOLE. 

" On their position in society, and the weight of their 
influence, it would be gratuitous to dwell. They need 
to be replenished from sources, that shall not only sus- 
tain and advance their professional excellencies and abil- 
ity, but make them increasingly fountains of spiritual 
health and blessing. 

" Such, too, are the claims of the bench of justice, the 
chair of state, and our halls of legislation. The present is 
a crisis in the world's history. The policy of courts and 
cabinets is not equal to the economy of Providence, not 
to the hope inspired by prophecy, nor to the cherished 
inheritance of the rising age. There is too much of that 
wisdom which is ' earthly, sensual and devilish ;' too lit- 
tle of that from above, which is 'pure, peaceable and 
full of good fruits.' And here I can but refer, though 
with shame, to scenes of tumult and personal violence, 
which, alas ! too often transpire in our national legisla- 
ture, more befitting the brawls of a bar-room, than the 



GENEVA LYCEUM. 41 

dignified councils of a great republic. Aye ! one sheds 
his brother's blood, almost within sight of the capitol, 
and comes fresh from the fatal encounter, with the gait 
and bearing of an honorable man, to his seat again in 
the grave counsels of the nation, and wipes his mouth, 
and says, ' I have done no iniquity.' Oh ! it is an offence 
to high heaven, a foul blot on the escutcheon of our 
country's glory : it is in dereliction of the necessities 
and aspirations of the age. 

"I speak the faults of no party or sect in politics, as 
such. There needs the infusion of better principles, of 
higher aims, of a richer sense of obligation and duty to 
God. There must be more men who fear God and work 
righteousness in the high places of society, to mingle 
in our counsels and guide the helm of state. More con- 
science, and more practical reference to the precepts of 
inspired wisdom, must enter into that composition of 
forces, which urges on the car of our destiny. The dic- 
tates of a low, worldly, selfish and ambitious policy are 
out of place, and unequal to the task. Our sails must be 
filled with the breath of heaven. More sanctified influ- 
ence must go up into the seats of political power to 
avert the curse of God, and make the American nation 
what it should be: the light and benefactress of the 
world. 

" I intended a more emphatic reference to the Gospel 
Ministry in this discussion. The command was ' Go ye 
and teach all nations.' Under God, the ministry of re- 
conciliation is the sun in the system of means to en- 
lighten and regenerate the race of man. It is worth 
more to this end than all other agencies combined. Its 



42 GENEVA LYCEUM. 

business is instruction. Its proper function is a worker 
together with God in the pathway of His redeeming 
Providence. It is His own economy for the conversion 
of men to holiness ; for ushering in a glorious latter 
day, and making earth like heaven. To this work the 
minister of Christ is consecrated, and the watchword of 
Providence now is — 'up and onward, for the harvest of 
the world is ripe.' No previous age perhaps, has furn- 
ished equal facilities for advancing this work. Help 
springs from the perfection of the arts, from the easy 
intercourse of nations, and from the spirit of travel and 
geographical research. The heathen world is opening 
to the entrance of Christian Missions ; and it would 
seem to be time, high time, to place it under the light of 
the Gospel, and to bring up its teeming millions from 
the darkness and degradation of their gentile state. At 
home, in Christendom, and abroad, among all nations, 
the demand is limitless, and it is imperative too. The 
question of the moral renovation of the race is hasten- 
ing to conclusion. The world is getting weary of idols. 
It is weary too of the shackles of the 'man of sin.'' 
Mind is breaking loose from the trammels of mere au- 
thority. Agencies in religion, in politics and morals, in 
commerce and in the daily intercourse of life, are burst- 
ing the cords of arbitrary restraint. Mind will be self- 
governed. As well may you hush the tempest in its 
wrath, or stav the avalanche from the mountains, as 
prevent it. But in vain do we demonstrate the foolish- 
ness of idols, or set men free from the dominion of the 
Pope, unless we put them under law to truth, to conscience 
and to God. They may as well be left to idols, as be 



GENEVA LYCEUM. 43 

without restraint of any kind. If they may not feel 
the supremacy of conscience, and be intelligently under 
the sway of truth, let them be subject to any tyrant 
principle, whether emanating from Rome, or Mecca, or 
the lying vanities of Paganism. Their liberty would 
only be licentiousness, and their condition one of deeper 
wretchedness than before. The Gospel is the world's 
great hope — its only resort. This day its light should 
be penetrating every shore, — its messengers be visiting 
every clime, and its full action be enjoyed by all people. 

" In view of wants like these in extent, and in event- 
ful urgency, do we speak of the necessity of well-directed, 
educated mind, at this day. In the light of these positions 
do we discover the value of well-trained youth, with 
minds and hearts equal to the demands that are upon 
us, capable of rising to the responsibilities of Providence 
now, of controling the moved elements of human thought 
and feeling, and of guiding the rising age, safely, man- 
fully through its destiny and of handing it down to the 
brighter, better hopes that follow. 

" Allow me to say in closing, that to assist in some 
humble measure at least, in rearing up this class of minds 
here referred to, and to these ends, is the object of the 
Institution whose anniversary exercises we are now at- 
tending." 



The subsequent history of the Geneva Lyceum is thus 
detailed by the founder, in the sketch he has left behind, 
of the prominent events and acts of his life : — 

" Soon after this period, the American Education So- 
ciety and its branches, in a period of some perplexity, 



44 GENEVA LYCEUM. 

adopted the unwise expedient of aiding no young man, 
in his course for the ministry until he had entered col- 
lege ; and as might be expected many were discharged, 
and prevented from commencing study. The means of 
the founder of Geneva Lyceum were inadequate to this 
posture of the case, — the tuition bills became insufficient 
for the teachers, and as but few pious young men, study- 
ing for the ministry, were brought forward, the design 
of the institution could not be sufficiently met to war- 
rant its continuance, and it was reluctantly abandoned." 

" Our consolation concerning it is, that it has done 
much good, having besides other influences, been the 
means of introducing into the Gospel ministry, it is 
thought, over one hundred young men, whose praise is 
in the churches and whose record is on high." 

" After this the buildings and grounds of the Lyceum 
were offered to the Synod of Geneva, on terms every 
way advantageous, for the founding of a College in this 
locality, — terms which involved a donation of some ten 
or twelve thousand dollars, by the proprietor. This, af- 
ter much agitation of the subject, was, from some lack 
of public spirit perhaps, and more it is likely, from 
its proximity to the Episcopal College in this place, was 
at length given up, and the premises have been devoted 
to other purposes." 



One testimony of the value of this Institution is here 
subjoined, from the pen of an alumnus, a minister of 
the Gospel, a president of a college, in a recent letter 
to Mrs. Squier : — 

"I there formed my idea of the value of institutions 



GENEVA LYCEUM. 45 

for Christian Education. No one can measure the wide- 
reaching influence for good which has gone out from 
the Geneva Lyceum. I have .always regretted that it 
could not have remained a permanent monument to the 
memory of your husband. But he was spared to be a 
light and a blessing to many young men, — and a most 
valuable contributor to Christian thought, — a champion 
of pure truth. A mind like his must feel a most ex- 
quisite delight in that world of unveiled and certain 
truth, where he sees so clearly that ' God is light and in 
Him is no darkness at all.' " 



Dr. Squier now furnishes us with a brief account of 
the manner in which his time was occupied from 1833 
to 1845, in the following language: — 

" After closing my connection with the A. H. M. So- 
ciety in 1833, most of my time was occupied in the 
oversight and direction of the Lyceum, and as secretary, 
conducting the relations of its beneficiaries to the Edu- 
cation Society, the largest list of whom reported any 
one year, in the Institution, was forty -four. In the mean- 
time as health permitted, I supplied destitute congrega- 
tions in the neighborhood ; among which were Junius, 
Newark, Castleton and West Fayette. With my wife 
I spent the winter of 1839 — 40 in Philadelphia, and 
took charge of the first congregation of Southwark, in 
that city ; it was the winter in which the ' Church Case' 
(so called) was traversed in the Supreme Court of Penn- 
sylvania, and in which it was my lot to appear as a wit- 
ness. I spent also several winters in the city of New 



46 THE "church case." 

York, and one in !STew Bennington, Vt., in charge of 
the Presbyterian congregation." 

The testimony offered by Dr. Squier in the case 
above referred to, relates to a matter of history, that 
will deeply interest all ministers and members of what 
has since been denominated the ISTew School Presbyte- 
rian Church. It describes the organization of its first Gen- 
eral Assembly in Philadelphia, in the year 1835, and is found 
on pages 107 and 108 of Lathrop's elaborate report of 
the Presbyterian church case, published by McElroy. 
That testimony is as follows : — 

Mr. Squier, in continuation, interrogated by Mr. Ran- 
dall : — " I was present at the organization of the As- 
sembly of 1838. After tendering the commissions to 
the clerks, I gave them for keeping to Mr. Nixon. I 
introduced him to Dr. Mason, and then went into the 
house — found the house very densely occupied at the 
south end, a large proportion of the gentlemen in that 
part of it being of the Old School party. The sermon 
was preached as usual, and at its close the Moderator 
(Dr. Elliott) announced that after the usual prayer he 
would proceed to constitute the Assembly. This prayer 
being finished, he took his place in front of the pulpit? 
and made a prayer, at the close of which Dr. Patton 
rose and said, that he held in his hand certain resolu- 
tions which he wished to offer. Dr. Elliott said that 
was not the time to present resolutions. Dr. Patton 
said that he was anxious to present them at that time. 
Dr. Elliott stated that they could not be received, as the 
roll was the next thing in order; and I think, stated that 
the clerks were ready to make their report. Dr. Patton 



THE " CHURCH CASE." 47 

stated that he had the floor before the clerks, and that 
his motion related to the roll. The Moderator told him 
he was out of order. Dr. Patton appealed from his de- 
cision. The appeal was seconded, to the best of my 
recollection. The Moderator refused to put the appeal 
to the house, saying to Dr. Patton he was out of order. 
Dr. Patton then took his seat, and the clerks made their 
report. Dr. Erskine Mason then rose, and addressed the 
Moderator, saying that he held in his hand the commis- 
sions of certain commissioners, from the Presbyteries 
within the bounds of the Synods of Utica, Geneva, 
Genesee, and Western Reserve, which had been refused 
by the clerks ; that he now tendered them (holding them 
up to view) for the purpose of completing the roll. The 
Moderator inquired of him if those Presbyteries were 
within the four Synods. He replied they were. The 
Moderator replied they could not be received, or in 
words to that effect. Dr. Mason then appealed from the 
decision of the Moderator to the house, which appeal 
was seconded. The Moderator refused to put the ap- 
peal, declaring it out of order. I then rose, and men- 
tioned to the Moderator, that my commission had been 
tendered to the clerks, and had been refused ; and I now 
demanded my seat, and that my name should be enrolled. 
The Moderator asked what Presbytery I represented. I 
replied the Presbytery of Geneva, The Moderator 
asked if that Presbytery belonged to the Synod of Ge- 
neva. I replied that it was within the bounds of the 
Synod of Geneva. He then said, ' We do not know 
you.' Mr. Cleaveland, of Detroit, then rose, and said, 
in substance, that as a Constitutional Assembly must be 



48 THE " CHURCH CASE." 

organized at that time and place, by the admission of all 
proper members to their seats, and as it was evident 
that this could not be done under these officers, or as it 
was impossible to go on and constitute or organize the 
Assembly under them, he moved that Dr. Beman take 
the chair, which motion was seconded, and was put by 
Mr. Cleaveland. Dr. Beman rose immediately after the 
question had been put and earned, by what I should 
think a nearly unanimous vote. He was sitting near the 
front of the slip. A motion was then made and second- 
ed, and was put by Dr. Beman, that Dr. Mason and Mr. 
Gilbert be appointed clerks. Dr. Beman, the acting 
Moderator, then called for nominations for the regular 
Moderator of the Assembly, when Dr. Fisher was nom- 
inated, and the nomination being seconded, and none 
other made, the question was put viva voce. Dr. Beman 
then announced to Dr. Fisher that he was elected Mod- 
erator of the General Assembly, and should govern him- 
self by the rules thereafter to be read to him. The Rev- 
Dr. Mason was then nominated as stated clerk, and Mr. 
Gilbert as permanent clerk, which nominations were put 
by Dr. Fisher, and carried. Some paper was then read 
or referred to, the purport of which I did not then un- 
derstand. On the back of this, a motion was made to 
adjourn to the First Presbyterian Church. The paper 
was on the subject of the occupancy of the house, and 
signed by a Mr. Schott. I cannot state by whom it was 
read, but to the best of my recollection, it was by Dr. 
Beman. The body then retired to the Session-room of 
the First Presbyterian Church, the Moderator announc- 
ing that if there were any other commissions, which had 



THE "church case." 49 

not yet been presented, they would be received there. 
After getting to the Lecture-room of the First Church, 
the business went on as usual." 

The resolutions offered by the Rev. Wm. Patton, D. D., 
of New York, and referred to in Dr. Squier's testimony, 
were, with the preamble, as follows : — 

" Whereas, The General Assembly of 1837 adopted certain 
resolutions intended to deprive certain Presbyteries of the right 
to be represented in the General Assembly ; and whereas, the 
more fully to accomplish their purpose, the said Assembly of 
1837 did require and receive from their clerks a pledge or prom- 
ise, that they would, in making out the roll of Commissioners to 
constitute the General Assembly of 1838, omit to introduce there 
in the names of Commissioners from said Presbyteries ; and where, 
as, the said clerks, having been requested by Commissioners from 
the said Presbyteries to receive their commissions and enter their 
names on the roll of the General Assembly of 1838, now about to 
be organized, have refused to receive and enter the same ; there. 
fore — 

" 1. Resolved, That such attempts on the part of the General 
Assembly of 1837, and their clerks, to direct and control the or- 
ganization of the General Assembly of 1838, are unconstitutional^ 
and in derogation of its just rights as the general representative 
judicatory of the whole Presbyterian Church in the United States 
of America. 

"2. Resolved, That the General Assembly cannot be legally 
constituted, except by admitting to seats, and to equality of 
powers, in the first instance, all commissioners who present the 
usual evidences of their appointment ; and that it is the duty of 
the clerks, and they are hereby directed to form the roll of the 
General Assembly of 1838, by including therein the names of all 
commissioners from Presbyteries belonging to the said Presby- 
terian Church, not omitting the Commissioners from the several 
4 



50 THE "CHURCH CASE." 

Presbyteries within the bounds of the Synods of Utica, Geneva, 
Genesee, and the Western Eeserve ; and in all things to form 
the said roll according to the known practice and established 
usage of previous General Assemblies." 



CONNECTION WITH BELOIT COLLEGE. 51 



CHAPTER VII. 

CONNECTION WITH BELOIT COLLEGE. 

The operations of the Geneva Lyceum having now 
been brought to a close, as related on a previous page, 
Dr. Squier, nevertheless, did not relinquish the noble 
purpose to consecrate his life and pecuniary means to 
the cause of Christian Education, and with a more spe- 
cial and immediate view to the raising up of ministers of 
the Gospel, as appears from the following statements 
which he has left on record : — 

" In 1845, I attended as a delegate from the Presby- 
tery of Geneva the Convention of Presbyterian and 
Congregational ministers, in Detroit, Michigan ; and 
from representations then made me, and the views I 
then took of the commanding importance of Education- 
al Institutions in the great western valley, was induced 
to extend my journey farther than Detroit, and visit the 
site of a proposed College or University at Beloit, Wis- 
consin. The country, the people, the conventions that 
had assembled on the subject, pleased me. In view of 
the Christian aspect of the whole matter, I resolved if a 
University charter was obtained, and the subject pros- 
ecuted in good faith, to throw in my influence and stick 
my stake there. In 1846 the charter was obtained, and 
in 1847, the corner stone of its present fine edifice was 
laid, and the College went into operation, in the instruc- 



52 CONNECTION WITH BELOIT COLLEGE. 

tion of its preparatory classes. In 1849 I received the 
invitation of the Board of Trustees of the College to 
the chair of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy in the in- 
stitution, and visited the ground in the spring of 1850, 
with my cherished friend, Rev. A. D. Gridley, of Clin- 
ton, to ascertain more fully the path of duty, — extending 
our journey thence into Iowa, and to the Falls of St. 
Anthony. 

" On my return to Geneva, I accepted the appoint- 
ment tendered me in the College, and in the spring of 
1851 entered on its duties, taking charge of one recita- 
tion a day of the Senior Class, and giving a course of 
public lectures to the whole College (and invited hearers) 
in my department of instruction, and closing with an 
Inaugural Address on the mornino- of Commencement 
Day, on ' The Province of the American Scholar? The 
Address was published by the Board of Trustees, and 
that Commencement Day, by the presence of its friends, 
and the exercises of the students, and the favor of God, 
was one of much interest and advancement to the Col- 
lege. A Collegiate Freshman Class of sixteen was then 
entered for the next year, against a graduating class of 
three students." 



It would seem, from a letter of Dr. Squier of July 2, 
1845, addressed to those in Beloit interested in founding 
the College, that he participated largely in the labor of 
projecting it, and in suggesting the best methods of 
securing the end in view. His heart seems to have been 
warmly engaged in this new enterprise, as is evident 
from his proposition therein contained, to throw his 



CONNECTION WITH BELOIT COLLEGE. 5o 

means largely into it, commencing with a subscription 
of ten thousand dollars, and to perform the duties of the 
Professorship of Intellectual Science and Divinity, and 
also to devote a portion of his time to the fiscal and 
general interests of the Institution, involving a traveling- 
agency for that purpose. He proposed to bring his 
Library into the service of the Institution, as he had no 
children to need it, and states that as soon as the way 
should be clear for connecting himself with it, both he 
and his beloved wife would be gratified to give the re- 
mainder of their days to some nascent and promising 
institution of science and piety in the great west — to. 
make a sort of child of it, and to do for it what they 
could, and leave to it the legacy of their prayers and 
means, mainly, as God should enable them, and mark 
out the line of duty. 



This perhaps will be the most convenient place to in- 
sert the following letter : — 

Middlebury, Aug. 20th, 1852. 
Dear Sir : — It gives me pleasure to inform you that the Pres- 
ident and Fellows of Middlebury College, at their late annual 
meeting, conferred on you the honorary degree of Doctor in 
Divinity. 

Respectfully yours, 
B. Labaree, 
Rev. Miles P. Squier, D. D. Pres't. Mid. Coll. 



Dr. Squier's connection with Beloit College is thus 
described by President Chapin in a lecture delivered in 
the College chapel a few days after Dr. Squier's de- 
cease. It is remarkable that the lecture, which came 



54 CONNECTION WITH BELOIT COLLEGE. 

in a regular course of exposition of the early records of 
the Bible, closed with the translation of Enoch and its 
impressive lesson — as President C. remarks : — 

" By a striking coincidence the Providence of God to- 
day brings this lesson very near to us, teachers and stu- 
dents of Beloit College. But yesterday, the announce- 
ment came that one who has been for years very pleas- 
antly associated with us, whose venerable face we have 
seen and whose kindly voice we have heard often in this 
place, has just been called home ; and here, where we 
were daily looking to see him again, ' he is not,' for on 
Friday, a week ago, ' God took him.' "*.***•* 

" He fixed his home in the beautiful village of Geneva, 
New York, and after leaving his missionary work, was 
much engaged in efforts to establish there an institution 
of learning, to help forward the young men of that re- 
gion in preparation for the work of the Gospel ministry. 
Although, through lack of general co-operation, that in- 
stitution was not settled on a permanent foundation, 
considerable success attended the effort with reference 
to its direct object, as not a few men, some of them now 
eminent in the church, trained by his aid, can attest. 
The interest then manifested in the work of Christian 
education, he never lost. As he advanced in years and 
had more leisure, he occupied himself with metaphysi- 
cal studies, for which he had a natural fondness, and 
was looking: around for some institution with which he 
might be identified as an instructor. He thus became 
interested in the steps taken for the founding of Beloit 
College, and in the summer of 1849 received an ap- 
pointment as Professor of Intellectual and Moral Phil- 



CONNECTION WITH BELOIT COLLEGE. 55 

osophy in this institution. In the following year, he 
accepted the appointment, having provided out of his 
own resources for the endowment of the chair. His in- 
tention then was to transfer his property and his home 
hither and come into close connection with our work 
But his circumstances at the East and the difficulty, at 
his time of life of adapting himself to the constant 
work of the class room, led him to change his purpose, 
and content himself with spending a few weeks of each 
year with us, giving instruction in his department both 
by recitations and by lectures." 

" For the last five years, his health has been precari- 
ous and his duties here consequently interrupted. His 
last visit was in 1863, three years ago. In consequence 
of increasing infirmities, he then made arrangements to 
pass the work of his Department into other hands, 
though his name has still had a place on our catalogue, 
as Professor Emeritus. During the last two years 
bie has been quite an invalid; yet, in April last, 
[ received a letter from him expressing anew his 
nterest and love for the College and the hope that he 
night be with us once more, at our approaching Com- 
nencement. In that letter, he speaks, as he was apt to 
6b, of the great want and the great hope of the king- 
d»m of Christ, whose interests lay always near his heart. 
It says : ' The times are big with interest — the West 
aid the South are opening and the world indeed to the 
injress of light and truth. Sanctified intellect is the 
orler of the day. Christian civilization and the in- 
coning of millennial times are the aspiration and the 
thoe of humanity and the aim of the Providence of 



56 CONNECTION WITH BELOIT COLLEGE. 

God. Give us the men — the men we want. Money will 
come easier and is made faster.' " 



The Lectures delivered by Dr. S., at Beloit College, 
were on the following subjects, viz : — 
The Truth of Religion ; 

The Method and the Acquisition of Knowledge ; 
Mental and Moral Habits ; 
The Value of a Philosophical Mind ; 
The Value of Moral Science ; 
The Generic Properties of Mind ; 
Philosophy and Its Uses ; 
Elements of Moral Science ; 
Lectures on Subjects connected with his late visit in Europe. 



The last act of pious and substantial regard which he 
performed to Beloit College, upon which he had bestow- 
ed ten thousand dollars in the endowment of the Pro- 
fessorship of intellectual and moral philosophy, was to 
direct in his will the transfer to the College of such a 
portion of his private Library as the President might 
deem suitable to enhance the worth and the usefulness 
of the Institution. 

The following minute was adopted by the Faculty o 
Beloit College, July 4th, 1866 :— 

Whereas, It has pleased the Heavenly Father to call aw^ 
our loved and honored associate, Rev. M. P. Squier, D. D., lae 
Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy in this College 
and whose sympathies, gifts, counsels, labors and prayers ha'e 
been identified with the foundation and the building of the Ol- 
lege, 

Resolved, That while we unite with his more immediate fan- 
ily circle in sorrow, that we shall see his face no more, we aso 



CONNECTION WITH BELOIT COLLEGE. 57 

unite in thankful remembrance of all the blessing with which his 
life was filled, and that we will cherish his memory as a part of 
the histoiy of the College, and as an incitement to such enthu- 
siasm in Christian aspiration, action, and thought as so eminent- 
ly distinguished his life. 

Resolved, That this action be communicated to Mrs. Squier, 
with the assurance that our sympathies and prayers are with her 
in her bereavement. 



A few days after the date of the above document, a 
similar one was adopted by the Trustees of Beloit Col- 
lege, and a copy of it transmitted to Mrs. S. 



Another tribute of deep respect and strong affection, 
is presented in the following communication : — 

Beloit, Wis., July 13th, 1866. 
Mrs. M. P. Squier — Dear Madam : — 

At the regular annual meeting of the Alumni Association 
of Beloit College, held last Tuesday, the following resolutions 
in regard to the death of our dear friend, Prof. Squier, were 
adopted : and read at Commencement dinner : — 

Resolved, That we, the Alumni of Beloit College, have learned 
with profound sorrow of the recent death of Prof. M. P. Squier, 
and that in view of this sad event we desire to record our grate- 
ful remembrance of his labors, prayers and large-hearted liber- 
ality in behalf of Beloit College. 

Resolved, That we who were his pupils cherish the deepest 
respect for his memory as an able and faithful instructor, and 
that we also remember with the liveliest gratitude and affection 
the kindly courtesy and 'ever active friendship which Ms social 
intercourse with us ever evinced. 

Resolved, That in his long life of devotion to truth, in his un- 
affected piety and untiring efforts in the cause of general educa- 
tion and morality, he nobly illustrated the character of the Chris- 
tian gentleman and scholar. 



58 CONNECTION AVITH BELOIT COLLEGE. 

Resolved, That we extend to his bereaved wife the expres- 
sion of our earnest sympathy in her deep affliction, while we re- 
joice with her that a peaceful and happy death closed so fittingly 
a life filled with Christian faith and earnest labor. 
Very Respectfully, your obedient servant, 

S. P. Fitch, 
Sec'y B. C. 'A. A., Pro tern. 



To the above minute, we take the liberty to append 
the following extract from a touching private letter of 
condolence to Mrs. S., ftom Prof. Porter, of the College, 
bearing date of July 2d, 1866 : — 

" We feel, very dear friend, that we too are mourners 
with you. We have lost a revered and loved associate, 
and a warm-hearted, sympathizing friend. His personal 
interest in each one of us, his intelligent and earnest 
sympathy in our work, the assurance of his prayers for 
our success, all were precious to us. And yet surely we 
have not lost these. Who can tell with what interest 
in this great work, and with what clear and enlarged 
perceptions of its relations to Christ's kingdom, he may 
even now be bending over us. And the memories of 
what he was will live and cheer us as long as God may 
spare us. 

" You need not the assurance, dear Madam, of our true, 
deep sympathy with you in your great loss. He, who 
has gone by your side so many years, the sharer of your 
joys and sorrows, a part of your very life, has crossed 
the river, and left you to linger a little while on this side. 
He has gone from your sight and care ; and yet he is not 
far away, — -just on the other side, — and he will wait for 
you ; you will not be long parted from him. You will 



CONNECTION WITH BELOIT COLLEGE. 59 

be lonely, you cannot help that ; but you will not be 
alone. The Saviour will be with you, with his rich con- 
solations and love ; the memories of the dear departed 
one will be with you, precious and blessed memories ; 
and the hope of the reunion soon on the brighter shore, 
will not let this life seem very dark ; — will gather round 
the few steps you have yet to take some of the light 
and peace of the blue hills beyond the River." 



60 VISIT TO EUROPE. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

VISIT TO EUROPE. 

In the summer of 1861, Dr. Squier made arrangements 
with the late Dr. Robert Baird for visiting Europe, and 
for attending the meeting of the Evangelical Alliance, 
that was about to be held in Geneva, Switzerland. This 
led him, while abroad, to study with profound interest 
the aspects and institutions of the old world. He also 
vindicated in an able and manly speech before the Evan- 
gelical Alliance, the justice and humanity of our late na- 
tional struggle with the great Rebellion. After his re- 
turn, he prepared, and read to j)rivate circles of hi3 
friends, several attractive and thoughtful lectures upon 
what he had seen abroad, and these will be found in sub- 
sequent pages of this volume. 

The following extracts from his journal, together with 
his papers on " Geneva and the Evangelical Alliance," 
and on " the American Meeting" there, will be read not 
without deep interest. He sailed, in company with Dr. 
Baird, on the steamship Fulton, August 19th, 1861. In 
his journal he writes : — 

" We had quite a religious element on board, and even- 
ing worship was attended daily in the ladies' cabin. 
Divine service also on the Sabbath. Dr. B. preached on 
the first Sabbath and I on the second. It was interest- 
ing to observe the progress of religious convictions, or 



VISIT TO EUROPE. 61 

of the manifestation of them as the voyage proceeded. 
At first but few attended the daily service, and there 
was an easy, jolly and irresponsible and careless look on 
the face of the crew, and the passengers, which gradually 
changed to respect and marked attention towards those 
who had confessed themselves on board to be the friends 
and followers of Christ. The benevolence and grace of 
some Christian young ladies, in their kind and assiduous 
help to the sick and suffering, contributed greatly to this 
result, and our last Sabbath's service was attended by a 
large share of the passengers, both of the first and of 
the second cabin." 

Sept. 5th, 1861, Geneva, Switzerland. " I preached on 
Sabbath evening last for Rev. Mr. Sawtell in the Ameri- 
can Seaman's Chapel, at Havre, to a full and attentive 
audience; felt much at home in the pulpit, and hope 
some serious impression was made. It was communion 
day, and I took part in the services at the table." 

"A general levee is attended every evening here, (in 
Geneva) during the meeting of the Alliance. I came 
near being a lion at the one at Dr. Lombard's, on Wed- 
nesday evening. Dr. Baird introduced me to Pastor 
Barde, of this place, as from Geneva in America. He 
went off in ecstacy, took me in his arms, kissed both 
cheeks, and called the attention of ladies and gentlemen 
to my wherefrom, and they came up to me, file after file, 
for introduction, and shaking of the hand. On Friday 
evening was another large levee in the grounds and gar- 
dens of Mr. Ezzard, a wealthy gentleman — thousands 
present — singing — tea and coffee from a long range of 



62 VISIT TO EUROPE. 

counters — and preaching in different languages, from 
different stands." 

""We have a great meeting here — said to be the largest 
by far, and has the largest number of great men — pro- 
fessors and scholars of all nations. I have speculated a 
little on the various nationalities, and I think, from a 
comparison all around, that the German meeting this 
P. M., at the Oratoire, presented the finest collection of 
heads and busts, and showed the most general cultiva- 
tion in appearance. But, it is as a whole one of the 
most cultivated' assemblies I ever saw. Everyone is 
very polite and obliging. I have quite fallen in love 
with Baptiste Noel, of London, and with Pastor Fisch, 
of Paris, and with Sir Culling Eardley, and other Eng- 
lishmen. They all thank us for the statements and ex- 
planations made by us; and they say that these will 
help very much to put the Christian mind of England 
and of the Continent right in respect to the present 
struggle in America. They desired us to go to England 
and talk so there. All here have their sympathies with 
the North, and think that God means a breach upon 
slavery." 

"Politics are not much here, or in Europe now, with 
the great body of educated men. There is a more in- 
tense intellectuality, — -they are deeper in matters of sci- 
ence and religion. The general mind of classical, think- 
ing men is more spiritual, more involved in the prob- 
lems of science — less practical — less absorbed in actual 
things, — they live more in history and have a wider 
range of intellectual associations, — they are scholars, 
biblicists, theologians, authors, — with a quick sense of 



VISIT TO EUROPE. 63 

reputation as such, and many of them living on the 
fruits of their works. I have come in personal contact 
with some of them, but here they are swarming by 
thousands, — and one only wants to come to such a con- 
vocation as this, to find out that the U. S. A. are not all 
the world. And yet I am surprised almost, at the re- 
spect and tenderness and affection in which our country 
is held here, and spoken of and prayed for by members 
of the Alliance." 

Dr. Squier makes brief mention in his journal of what 
he saw in Italy — in Turin, Genoa, Leghorn and Florence. 
He says : — 

" I saw more grapes yesterday than in all my life be- 
fore, — the country road-side full of small trees, and each 
with two grape-vines now hanging full, and just ready 
for the vintage ; — mostly blue, some white." 

Florence, Sept. 18. "We are at the extreme south 
of our proposed route, as the heat and the malaria 
keep us from visiting Rome, judging in our case that 
discretion is as good as valor. We have had a good 
view of the great exhibition, and of the choicest gallery 
of paintings and sculpture, excelling anything of the 
kind I have seen." 

Lyons, Sept. 23. "This is a city of 400,000 inhab- 
itants — the second in France — very handsomely built on 
the Rhone and Soane, which unite at its base, and flow 
on to the Mediterranean. I have seen here the palaces 
in which two of the Roman Emperors were born. Be- 
sides, I have bought for my wife one of the best um- 
brellas in France, which I shall borrow for a while to 
keep the rain off, so that she may feel she is protecting 



64 VISIT TO EUROPE. 

my head henceforth against all the storms of Europe to 
which I may be exposed." 

Paris. "Went out to-day to the American Chapel 
and saw a fine congregation ; heard a good sermon from 
Rev. Dr. McClintock on the subject of the American 
"War. Much sincere and fervent prayer, I hope, was of- 
fered before and after the sermon. I trust the day has 
been widely and faithfully observed in Europe as well 
as in America ; and may the Lord turn this War to ac- 
count in the methods of His redeeming Providence." 

" Have visited to-day the grandest point in Europe 
that I have seen yet ; it is the " Triumphal Arch," on 
one of the great thoroughfares of Paris, and two miles 
west of the Palace Royal and the Tuilleries. It spans 
the magnificent highway, and is perhaps 125 feet high, 
stands on an eminence somewhat, — is written largely 
over with the names of victories and generals, &c. It 
is one of the most complete and perfect structures in 
stone-work I ever saw. I ascended it to the top by a 
stone stair-case with iron railing, and should think the 
apex 100 by 70 feet broad. There is furnished the best 
view of Paris and its environs and country ; all now in 
richest attire and fullest glory, just washed down with a 
shower. The main avenue, leading out from the city 
centre two miles, twice as wide as Broadway, and filled 
with carriages under and beyond it, and then eight other 
streets dividing the circle and making it — the Arch— 
the centre ; and villas and gardens and spacious prom- 
enades on every side, and les Monts Maitre and Morency 
and the Seine a little in the distance, and all the Palaces 
and Churches and Monuments of the city under the eye. 



VISIT TO EUROPE. 65 

Well, unpoetical as I was, I could not leave until after 
4 P. M., when the physical man quite demanded some- 
thing more substantial. 

" Midway to the Arch we passed the Egyptian Obelisk, 
70 feet high, and on a pedestal of 30 feet, all covered 
over with hieroglyphics, — whose bringing (the Obelisk) 
and whose raising were such a triumph of science and 
skill. There is also Napoleon's Monument in Place 
Vendome, 140 feet in stone, with a stair-case inside, and 
the whole column encased in bronze, with inscriptions 
of battles and victories, and surmounted by a bronze 
statue of Napoleon on the top. A splendid band of 
music was playing at its base as I passed, most exquisitely. 
The French certainly know how to make the most of 
this life by way of the fine arts ; still they have not the 
deep, liquid, mellow sky of Italy, nor its silken language ; 
and have got the way of sinning with the least con- 
science of almost any people." 

Sept. 29, 1861. Paris. "Went over to the 'Gallery 
of Paintings' and Fine Arts in the Palace of the Tuil- 
leries, and spent most of the day there, and about the 
gardens of plants and flowers yet in full bloom, gerani- 
ums and all. How you would have enjoyed them ! I 
examined 'Les Champs Elysees' more fully and got 
around to dine at my restaurant at 5 P. M. Next day 
examined the Royal Palace and L'Hotel de Ville, which 
are historical celebrities and the last a magnificent spec- 
imen of the fine arts in architecture. Passed by some 
other monuments to that of the Bastile, dedicated to the 
glory of France and the citizens of Paris, for victories, 
&c: I took an omnibus and upon the roof rode thence 



66 VISIT TO EUROPE. 

the whole length of the old Boulevards of Paris, to the 
Madelaine church, some two and a half miles, for three 
sous. This is cheap certainly, you will say. That church, 
too, is one of the finest in Paris ; is of Grecian style of arch- 
itecture. At 5 P. M. we went to dine by invitation with 
pasteur Fisch and lady who had been in America, and who 
were full of American ideas, where we spent the even- 
ing very pleasantly, getting back to our Hotel at 10 P. M." 
" Sabbath : Dr. B. preached at his American Chapel, 
two or three miles out, but I took my Testament and 
went to Notre Dame, the old cathedral, and ' mother of 
us all.' It is a huge Gothic pile, but the worship was 
very insignificant and small, and waited on but by few, 
and they quite of a low and poor class. One first-class 
Yankee congregation is worth a regiment of such ones. 
Romanism, supported by the state, must run down be- 
fore increasing light, and then some Whitfield under 
God will get the people. I mounted, by stone stair-case, 
to the balcony and towers, 250 feet, and saw all Paris 
again, from a point two and a half miles away from the 
Triumphal Arch. Finding a chair in the tower, I sat 
down and read my Testament, and prayed for the city 
under my eye, so much given to idolatry, and for France 
and Europe and the world, not forgetting my own be- 
loved country and friends and you, and had quite a 
meeting there in one of the towers of old Notre Dame ; 
and who should meet me there and then but a young 
friend who knew me at Beloit, a son of Mr. Walker, of 
Chicago, who now is travelling in Europe. So we sat 
down together for half an hour and discoursed on the 
things of this and the coming world. Cut off from the 



VISIT TO EUROPE. 67 

privileges of social worship, I have tried to keep my 
thoughts heaven-ward, and to gain instruction from the 
Sabbath habits and customs of the multitudes around me." 

"Monday, Sept. 30. Have to-day, after feasting a 
little on the glories of the Tuillery Gardens, taken a cab- 
riolet, and visited 'Le Bois Boulogne,' a wide range of 
grounds and parks away beyond the Arche Triomphe, 
and then ' L' Hotel des Invalides ' and the parks, — then 
the Pantheon, and church St. Sulspice, and round to the 
Bastile, and, by my favorite omnibus ride to my Hotel. 
I find myself invited to dine to-day with our ambassador, 
Mr. Dayton; Dr. Baird, also, but he is engaged else- 
where, and I shall have to do the honors of the occa- 
sion. To-morrow we leave for London. I hope there 
to find cousin L. and a letter from my" dearest earthly 
one. If both fail it will be an argument for looking 
America-wise before long." 

Paris, Tuesday, Oct. 1. "Had a magnificent time at 
Ambassador Dayton's at dinner last eve, and your hum- 
ble correspondent was treated with all due respect. Mr. 
D. requested me to implore the Divine blessing, and the 
dinner went on in true French style, — course after 
course, — soup, fish, roast-beef, chickens, pudding, fruit 
with wines, claret, sherry and champagne. Left table 
about nine, and tea was served about ten ; and half-past, 
we walked two miles home. Dr. B. called for me. The 
party not large, consisting of the family of five, and 
four or five others, — Americans, — and it was quite re- 
freshing to hear and talk mother English." 

" To-day have given the news-room at Monro's a long 
visit, and then devoted the time to the Palais d' Indus- 



68 VISIT TO EUROPE. 

trie. It has a splendid collection of paintings and other 
works of art ; has some fine statuary." 

London, Oct. 3, 1861. "Have pleasant quarters in 
Northumberland street, close by the Strand and Charing 
Cross, Nelson's Monument and Westminister Abbey, 
Parliament House; but no cousin and no letters. The 
structures are massive and heavy, and the grounds less 
ornamental than in Paris, and yet there is much of 
history and grandeur in them. The Thames is more of 
a river than I supposed, and the bridges over it are more 
colossal in their architecture. Saturday is the day for a 
free visit to the Parliament Houses. One might spend 
a month about London, as about Paris, but I can see 
from samples what the whole means, and I find riding 
through this rich agricultural country at this magnificent 
season of the year, quite as interesting as the sight of 
the capital." 

Friday, Oct. 4. " Was at the Turkish Aid Mission 
Rooms to-day. Mr. Birche read me a letter just re- 
ceived from Dr. Dwight of Constantinople. He has been 
absent eight months among the Missions in Turkey and 
Persia : is just returning to America by Paris and Lon- 
don, with three daughters, and two or three other ladies. 

" Met our friend Rev. Mr. Garnet (colored) on the walk 
to-day. He has come over to enlighten England on the 
American question. 

"Have had a boat-ride on the Thames to-day, and 
had a view of London and other bridges ; of St. Paul, 
the Parliament Houses, and of other monuments and 
sights too numerous to mention. 

" I shall have something to say to my friends about 



VISIT TO EUROPE. 69 

Europe when I get back, though I despair of seeing the 
whole, or indeed, very largely of it. A few central 
points are enough, as marking the characteristics of the 
different countries and people. I shall have got some 
new ideas and experience. If I shall have accomplished 
only the bringing out of the American question at Ge- 
neva, and secured the large and kind-hearted response 
of the Conference, and the consent of view, and the 
gush of feeling which attended that matter, &c, it were 
worth all it has cost as yet." 

London, Oct. 5. "I devoted the morning to the Par- 
liament House, inside and out ; thence to the interior of 
Westminister Abbey ; and really in its monuments and 
records of the dead, royal and not royal, for a thousand 
years back, it exceeds anything I ever conceived of. 
This P. M. I have been out to St. James, Green, and 
Hyde Parks, Buckingham Palace, and the general region 
of the nobility, and really I begin to feel that I under- 
stand London like a book, and may get out of this dank 
atmosphere, and hie away to Oxford and Scotland the 
first of next week." 

Sabbath, Oct. 6. " I went first to St. Paul. Congre- 
gation small, in one nave of the building, — worshipped 
a little, — looked at the gorgeous architecture, — arches, 
domes, statues, pictures, — and left for Spurgeon's church. 
Got there just in time, and by special favor was taken 
by a back way right on to the platform with the speaker, 
and within fifteen feet of him ; and in front of an au- 
dience of four thousand people, in three tiers; heard all, 
and was taken into his private room afterward, and had 
quite an interview with him. He is only twenty-seven 



70 VISIT TO EUROPE. 

years old ; his sermon was not great, but kind and faith- 
ful in spirit, and had some fine passages in it. He asked 
me to come to the communion in the evening, but I told 
him it was too far away from my lodgings. He is an 
open communion Baptist. At 3 P. M. Dr. B. and I went 
down to the Westminister Abbey, partly for the preach- 
ing, and partly for the music." 

Oxford, Oct. 7. " Left London to-day at ten, and came 
hither, over sixty miles, and have really tired myself 
out among the Colleges, (nineteen) and four halls of a 
higher grade. It is a city of colleges, with magnificent 
foundations, and rich and ample arrangements. One 
must see them to appreciate them." 

" I have found the gentlemen of the colleges very po- 
lite, and ready to show whatever I had time or strength 
to see. They are about 1,600, all told, and literary men 
enough about in connection, to make in all 2,000. The 
town exists mainly for them, and strangers are attracted 
to it as a literary centre. 

" Have come through a rich farming country to-day, 
up the Thames and its tributaries ; Reading, and other 
towns. Expect to leave for the North at 9.30 A. M., 
to-morrow." 

Oxford, Thursday, 10. "Well, I overdid on Monday, 
and have concluded to give up my Northern jaunt, and 
spend the time more at ease around here and on the 
way to Liverpool, against the time my ship sails. A 
kind gentleman, to whom I had a letter here, and who 
resides a little out in the country, and who loves Chris- 
tians for Christ's sake, has benevolently invited me to 



VISIT TO EUROPE. 71 

spend a few days in his family, and I have consented to 
stay till after the Sabbath." 

Friday, A. M. " I find myself getting over my ill 
turn, but think I did well to give up my journey to the 
North country, and around about. The gentleman, Jo- 
seph Warne, Esq., is Postmaster at Oxford ; has a car- 
riage, and we have delightful drives in the country. He 
is in feeble health, and not in much business, and seems 
to have taken quite a liking to your honored spouse. 
We went to the tailors yesterday for a suit of clothes, 
so you may see me, if I live to get home and we meet, 
dressed like an Oxford Professor, for I let ' them have 
their own way about it. I took a walk at 1 P. M., with 
a son of Mr. W. to the old parish church of Isling, one 
and a half miles away. It has stood there ever since 
the Norman conquest in the eleventh century, venerable 
and grotesque. We came home by a lane along the 
banks of the Thames." 

" P. M. I have been to town to-day to visit some of 
the curiosities not before seen. Among them the Bod- 
leian Library of 500,000 volumes, and gallery of paintings, 
and sculpture, and models, and busts, and heads, and 
full length figures of all the celebrities of the kingdom 
since the time of Alfred the Great, in all their peculiari- 
ty of drapeiy, of costume, &c, of their respective 
periods. I spent nearly two hours in the Gallery. One 
thing interested me much. It was an exact model of 
the Parthenon at Athens in Greece, which, I found too, 
was the model of the Madelaine church at Paris, which 
I had much examined outside and in. I went also into 



72 VISIT TO EUROPE. 

the Theatre, (as they call it,) where all the honorary de- 
grees of the University are conferred. 

" And now, as you may see, my face is fully set for 
America and home. I wish to stop a little on the way 
to Liverpool, and to have some two or three days there. 
October is said to be a good month to cross the ocean 
in, but I am not unmindful of the perils of the way. I 
commit my way to God, and try to feel safe and happy 
in his hands. "We are always in danger, more, perhaps, 
on the water than on the land. The earth is hung out 
upon nothing, and is, with all upon it, dependent upon 
God's care. We cannot get beyond His promises or 
His care. You are praying for me and committing me 
to a faithful and covenant keeping God, and other friends 
are, and I trust to be brought safely to you and to do 
something yet in the cause of God, before I go hence. 
I leave it, we must leave it, we will leave it, and rejoice 
to leave it with Him. God has already granted us a 
long life, even to the full age of man. Many dear 
ones have gone before us. Oh ! perhaps you too have 
gone before me, and /, if I should soon go hence, may 
meet you too among the beloved ones that have gone 
home. Oh! for the sweet visions of faith and hope. 
Why not 1 God is good. He is our Heavenly Father. 
He is reconciled to us in Christ. It is his good pleasure 
to give us the kingdom. He is not willing that any 
should perish. His heart is for our salvation. He says, 
i Fear not,' and we will leave our bodies and our souls 
in His hand and care, and fear no evil, and confidently 
trust, and joyfully expect, and anticipate that when the 
changes and chances of this earthly pilgrimage are over, 



VISIT TO EUROPE. 73 

whenever, wherever, however, we shall be gathered, 
through riches of grace, to the rest that remaineth for 
His children on high." 

" Oct. 13. We dined by invitation at Abingdon yes- 
terday, and had a very intelligent and pleasant visit. 
Met a very pleasant gentleman there, having the most 
splendid and expensive Library I ever saw, and who 
kindly spent most of the P. M. in showing me the curi- 
osities of it. 

" To-day was Convocation day at Oxford University 
in all its colleges and foundations. The heads of de- 
partments, Professors, Masters, and Pupils, more or less, 
met in St. Mary's church and listened to a sermon from 
the celebrated Dr. Pusey, the Father of Puseyism, and 
much known in our country. As I was an American 
clergyman, I was admitted among the gownsmen, and 
had a good seat ; was much interested in the discourse, 
which was a full hour long. It was really a very labored 
and able production."* 

" Tuesday, 4th. I am now at Birmingham, in the 
midst of all the manufactories and soot and smoke of 
this great centre of coal-dust, iron, and the mechanic 
arts. I went into Oxford from Mr. W.'s at Fair Acres, 
in the morning of Monday, and was invited out to tea 
at Mrs. Wyat's, the mother of Mrs. Warne, and met two 
of her sisters, and they talked to me almost unmerciful- 
ly about America. To-day I left my friend at eleven 
and came on here, a little less than half the way to 
Liverpool. As I have concluded to take counsel of 

* See paper on " Rev. Dr. Pusey at Oxford" on a subsequent page. 



74 VISIT TO EUROPE. 

prudence, and reserve strength for the voyage home, 
and have time to linger on the way, I divide up the 
route a little. I have come through a most inviting 
countiy to-day. If all England is like it, I do not won- 
der that the people are proud of then* agriculture and 
their homes. There is a peculiar richness of verdure in 
the grass, and the trees, and hedges. The cattle and 
sheep, which are in great abundance, seem to be up to 
their eyes in fat pasture. Towers and church spires are 
very numerous, and the gentle undulations of hill and 
dale present a very fine appearance. This place affords 
but few attractions, so uniform and so smoky, I was al- 
most sorry my ticket did not carry me farther. Still 
many parts are well built and airy. I went through the 
market and bought some little remembrances of it, and 
am now quietly writing in my apartments in the Stork 
Hotel on the square. Have seen one fine old temple 
here to-day, and walked in. its church yard, full of the 
mementos of those who have passed away. I thought 
in Westminster Abbey the other day, Oh ! what a his- 
tory and record have all these, since the date of these 
sepulchres, and their habitation in the flesh. Yerily 
England remembers the dead. France celebrates the 
living and the future." 

" I am getting somewhat animated in being home- 
ward bound, and yet, I have some dread of the sea, not- 
withstanding our pleasant voyage out. The Lord made 
it and made it to be traversed, I suppose, and we must 
trust him in its use. Taking all precautions, for good 
craft and good seamen, we must go down to it in ships 
and do business in great waters, and accept among the 



VISIT TO EUROPE. 75 

changes and chances of life, the perils the subject in- 
volves." 

"Chester, 3 P. M. Wednesday. Left Birmingham 
at 11 A. M., and have had a magnificent ride of some- 
thing less than 100 miles. Am now but fifteen miles 
from Liverpool. I took first-class car as yesterday, which 
is vastly more convenient, though a little more expen- 
sive. I was alone in the car of six sittings, with none 
to disturb me or my surveys or musings, and must say 
that I think it my best ride yet. I was lord of the ma- 
nor and monarch of all I surveyed, and was taken, 
doubtless, for some great one, as they stared at me sit- 
ting in state and alone in my glory. The first thirty 
miles were a succession of manufacturing towns as far 
each way as the eye could reach, with tall chimneys 
continually belching out blaze and smoke. Then suc- 
ceeded about twenty-five miles of rather the handsomest 
farming land, — Shrewsbury,- — and then some not so 
good, and another range of manufactories. Then we 
approached the border of Wales, and ran across a corner 
of it, and saw something like mountains ; though this 
whole way from London is far more level and champaign 
a country than I had supposed. The finest, and largest, 
and richest valley yet, opened upon us as we crossed 
out of Wales into Cheshire — famous for Cheese — and 
came down to Chester. I took a carriage and rode over 
the town this P. M. to see its celebrities, such as the 
splendid old gothic Cathedral of 1000 years, the old 
walls of nearly equal antiquity, the Castle, Charles the 
Second's Tower, the modern race course of Ten Brock 
& Co. Shall go on to-morrow and fit up a little for the 



76 VISIT TO EUROPE. 

voyage home, and pray for a good and prosperous pas- 
sage. I hope to hear from you at Liverpool. If I 
should not, I will still hope on that all is well with you, 
and that you are praying for my safe and speedy return. 
I begin now, as sight-seeing is getting over and I am 
getting over my breakdown from overdoing at Oxford 
and before, to meditate a little how I shall make myself, 
perhaps, or the world, or any part of it, or my friends, 
the wiser by my visit to Europe, should the Lord spare 
me to return and mingle again in the accustomed circles 
of life." 

" Liverpool, October 17th. This is, as you would ex- 
pect, quite a matter-of-fact, business-looking town. I 
have bought a map and guide book of it, which show it 
to fair advantage. Some churches look well, and I ex- 
pect to mount the Town Hall to-morrow, from the bal- 
cony of which a fine view is said to be given of the city 
and its surroundings. The most remarkable thing here 
is doubtless the extensive docks in the Mersey, a good 
profile of which is seen in the map. I find it depresses 
me somewhat not to hear from you at this point, and not 
to know anything recent about you. But I know you 
are in Divine keeping in some world, and that we shall 
meet again somewhere. I will yet hope in this life, and 
have some years of sojourn and comfort and progress 
here, and to do something yet for the Master. I shall 
find it better for me to be busy, if I can, and I propose 
blocking out some topics, with jottings by the way, that 
I may fill out, perhaps, more fully afterwards." 

" Oct. 19th. At 12 o'clock to-day we bid good-by to 
Liverpool and England, only that the hills of Holy 



VISIT TO EUROPE. 77 

Head and Wales appear in the east as we are turning 
away westerly for the coast of Ireland and Cork to-night. 
We left in a fog, with smoke, and a breeze from the east, 
but it has cleared up and the sun is bright and cheerful, 
and the Irish Channel is smooth as a river. We have 
over one hundred passengers and quite a sprinkling of 
ladies. One gentleman from Boston, with whom I 
traveled from Paris to London, very pleasant and com- 
panionable. I find two sons of Mr. Stokes, nephews of 
Wm. E. Dodge, of New York, aboard, who are very 
pleasant. 

" Lat. 49, Lon. 35. Sabbath. It was arranged yes- 
terday to have services to-day at eleven, and that I 
should preach. The rules of the company require the 
service of the Church of England, and good Br. Gras- 
sette, Rector of the Cathedral church, Toronto, Canada 
West, is to read the service. At the time the dining 
cabin was filled and the service read and solemn, and I 
preached the sermon I last did at Geneva to an attentive 
and interested (as I think) audience, and I hope a ben- 
efitted one." 

" Thursday, 7 P. M. To-day dined together for the 
last time, and it was whispered around that there must 
be a speech, and all hands looked to me, and so I made 
a few remarks on the favorable voyage, &c, and passed 
to an appreciative sentiment of Capt. Anderson, his 
officers and crew, and the gentlemanly stewards by 
whom we have been served, and three cheers for the 
good old ship that has brought us so safely over. All 
went off merrily, and the Captain made a brief and 
handsome reply. 



78 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PRESS. 



CHAPTER IX. 

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PRESS. 

For several years Dr. Squier has been in the habit of 
sending an occasional article to the American Biblical 
Repository, the Bibliotheca Sacra, the Presbyterian 
Quarterly and Theological Review, but more frequently 
to the New York Observer, and the New York Evange- 
list, some of which articles are reproduced in the pres- 
ent volume. Several were written in the two last named 
journals, in vindication of the philosophical and theolo- 
gical views presented in "The Problem Solved," and 
which display not a little of that profundity and acumen 
which characterize this class of his writings. It was 
his intention to republish these in a volume, with other 
writings, but as the same considerations and arguments 
will be found embodied in other portions of his writings 
now being published, it is thought best to withhold the 
former, except so much as may be ' required to indicate 
the purpose and scope of the volume. 

As a writer, he is most prominently exhibited in the 
volume entitled "The Problem Solved, or Sin Not of 
God," published in 1855, and in the somewhat larger, 
much more popular and useful volume, entitled "Reason 
and the Bible, or the Truth of Revelation," published 
in 1860. 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PRESS. 79 

The former attracted very general, and, in some cases, 
severe criticism from the religious press. ISTo intelligent 
reader of it will question the statement, that it is the 
production of an acute, vigorous and profound thinker — 
an eminently original and suggestive work — an excel- 
lent instrument of intellectual discipline to one who 
shall attempt to sound its depths, and follow the entire 
length of its line of argumentation. There has been, 
indeed, a question raised with regard to the satisfactori- 
ness, and logical accuracy, and conclusiveness of the 
work, and the justness of the claim which the title as- 
sumes to the merit of having solved one of the most 
difficult problems that has ever employed the ingenuity 
and vigor of the human mind. 

For example, one of the critics contends that the sum 
and substance of " The Problem Solved" amounts to no 
more than the generally received opinion that man, and 
not God, is the sinner. The state of the question may 
be learned from a few extracts on each side. And, first 
on the side of the critic in the "K Y. Evangelist," as 
follows : — 

" The confession of Faith has solved the same prob- 
lem in very explicit words : ' God from all eternity did, 
by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, free- 
ly and unchangeably ordain whatever comes to pass ; yet 
so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is 
violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the 
liberty or contingency of second causes taken away but 
rather established.' This is just what we believe. We 
have never supposed God to be * the author of sin/ in 
any sense that implies criminality, or attaches to him its 



80 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PRESS. 

blameworthiness, or makes it his act or moral state. 
Sin is a phenomenon in man, and of him, and not in 
God. The confession of Faith holds this doctrine ; the 
Evangelical pulpit has ever preached it ; and hence, on 
the purely subjective side of the question, we do not see 
that the author of ' The Problem Solved' has made any- 
new discovery, or stated any new idea. Who believes 
that sin is God's 'method' or 'arrangement' or 'pre- 
ference,' in any sense that supposes Him to be a par- 
taker in its criminality ? Nobody that has any claim to 
be a Christian, or to credit the testimony of the Bible. 
There is no such theory extant in the church, or taught 
in her schools of theology, to be exploded by referring 
sin to a cause 'in the finite.' We repeat, man is the 
sinner, and not God ; sin is the state of man, and not of 
his Maker." 

" This statement, however, so easily made, and so gen- 
erally admitted, does not reach the real ' problem,' with 
which speculative theology has had to grapple in respect 
to the origin of moral evil. It is merely a statement of 
what is true in the subjective — in man. It simply answers 
the question, Who is the sinner ? Besides this, there is 
another question, emphatically the question which the 
author of 'The Problem Solved' has scarcely touched, 
and upon which we do not see that he has thrown even 
the first ray of light. Let us state this question. What 
is the true exposition of the fact that such a being as 
God himself, infinite in knowledge, power, benevolence 
and holiness, has constructed a system of existence, and 
still upholds it, in which moral evil exists ? Why has 
He admitted sin into a system of which He is the sole 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PRESS. 81 

author and supporter, and which therefore of necessity 
is dependent upon him 1 ? To find sin 'in the finite,' 
and refer it to ' the finite,' is no answer to this question. 
Let it be remembered, that this very ' finite,' in the ut- 
most comprehensiveness of its being, faculties, laws and 
conditions, is the product of the Infinite ; that it is not 
a self-originated, nor a self-sustaining concern, but en- 
tirely dependent upon the God who made it. How then 
comes it to pass that he is the author and supporter of 
such a 'finite,' with his eye upon its historic develop- 
ment in the form of sin, so extensive and desolating as 
experience and revelation abundantly prove it to be? 
Let this 'problem' in the 'objective' be 'solved 5 by 
some theory, proved to have its positive verity in the 
mind of God, and then we shall know something about 
the subject. Beyond all debate, there is just such a 
question that may be started. Let any one think what 
God is, and what are his necessary relations to the uni- 
verse, and what man is in the actual manifestations of 
his character, and he can hardly fail to meet the inquiry. 
It will dawn upon him in spite of himself; and we are 
sorry that the author of ' The Problem Solved' did not 
face the real issue, that has so long engaged the atten- 
tion of theologians. Had he done this, he would prob- 
ably have needed many more chapters and pages, before 
announcing the 'Problem' as 'solved.' We do not 
object to the psychology or theology that makes man 
the sinner ; let the proposition be proved, we care not 
how strongly ; but to offer this as an explanation of sin 
considered as an event in the moral government of God, 
is simply dodging the whole difficulty." 
6 



82 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PRESS. 

" For ourselves, we must say that we hare no theory 
on this subject to present, and therefore none to defend. 
We have never yet solved 'the problem;' and judging 
from our own experience, as well as from the efforts of 
others, we expect to die, leaving this as one of the se- 
crets that 'belong unto the Lord our God.' That man 
is a sinner, we have no doubt ; nor do we doubt whether 
there be a God — a great causal and governing ' Spirit, 
infinite, eternal and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, 
power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.' These per- 
fections of the Supreme Being we always assume as 
sufficiently proved, and therefore never to be called in 
question. What such a God would do, we cannot tell 
a priori, by simply reasoning from his attributes. We 
cannot tell what kind of a world he would make, under 
what circumstances he would place moral agents, or 
whether sin would be in or out of a system originating 
from his creative power." 

To the above extracts, the author of " The Problem 
Solved" replies, in part, as follows : — 

" It is no part of my object to attempt, for the thou- 
sandth time, to frame excuses for God's introducing sin 
into his plan for a universe, but to deny that he has it 
there at all, and to give my reasons for this position ; 
not to reiterate the common belief, with my reviewer, 
that ' God is not the author of sin, in any sense that im- 
plies criminality, or attaches to him its blameworthiness,' 
but that He is so in no sense whatever ; that siD is no 
part of his economy, and lies no way in his plan, method 
or primordial arrangement for the universe ; that it is in 
no sense of his proposition or an integrant in his meth- 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PRESS. 83 

od, and that he sustains no relation to it, either in a 
scheme of things or an actuality which is not aside 
from it, and contrary and antagonistic to it ; that it is 
not here by his decree or permission, but with the con- 
sent of neither, and that he is taking the best methods 
against it in probation and retribution. And this I at- 
tempt to establish by the first truths of reason and the 
Bible in view of the attributes of moral government, as 
well as of the moral convictions, and the teachings of 
common sense. Does my reviewer hold thus, and so 
agree with me, and is this the common doctrine % If so, 
I much rejoice at it, as it shows at least the possibility 
of light, on the subject of the Divine relations to wrong, 
and of the solution of the problem of sin, on principles 
consistent with honor and right in the Deity." 

" The passage quoted in the review from the Confes- 
sion of Faith, is doubtless built on the following pas- 
sage of the Bible : — • Who worketh all things after the 
counsel of His own will/ which is the same as to say 
that God acts from the resources of His own intelligence, 
does all His works from the necessary perfections and 
sufficiency of His own being. And if the Confession of 
Faith agrees with its authority, it does not include sin 
among the things ordained of God, as it is no work of 
His. The purposes of a being primarily respect his 
own acts, and is the mental condition of them. All sin 
lies in a purpose. It is not a thing, an effect or event 
properly, but is an attitude or state of the will. It inheres 
in a cause; and is by limitation precluded from be- 
ing the purpose of the Infinite. And if this is the 
sense of the Confession of Faith at this point, I am 



84 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PRESS. 

happy in a cordial assent to it, and to all its correlates. 
I do but affirm that sin is without the decree or arrange- 
ment of God for it, in any sense ; that it is no part of 
His scheme of things ; that He meets it as he finds it, 
in the method and agency of others than Himself, in the 
way of a pure and unyielding antagonism, as infinite 
wisdom dictates, and gloriously as the end will show ; 
that the account of the introduction of sin in Genesis, 
is legitimate and appreciable ; that the prohibition there 
given is the exponent of the whole will of God in the 
premises, and that it is checkmated by no 'decretive 
will,' or primordial arrangement of God, antagonizing 
and discrepant therewith, and which would be a dogma, 
that would show the sin of man, on the last analysis, to . 
meet the mind of God, and be His own perfect way in 
the moral sphere, and which has been the dogma which 
has created all the difficulties in the common theology at 
this point. Does the reviewer agree with me here, and 
does the Confession of Faith but corroborate these views 
— then surely I ought to be content." 

" When the reviewer has thus disposed of the book 
as mere common place in his view, and as eddying i,n 
the vortex of all received opinions, he sinks to a deeper 
level of truth, and strikes into the real theological ques- 
tion and difficulty to which the book relates, and con- 
cerning which it treats. But he does this de ?iovo, as a 
superadded thought of his own, and as quite beyond the 
depth of the book or the conception of its author. I 
may surprise him if I say, he has now just reached the 
precincts of our subject, and got to the point in hand. 
The question is on the real relations of God to an econ- 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PRESS, 85 

omy of sin and wrong ; and whether he has ordained 
such cm economy at all, or whether it is here without him, 
or his proposition of it in a scheme of things — is here 
as the method and scheme of another, and in every 
sense against the will of God. This is the subject mat- 
ter of the book, as an ultimate truth. It lies just here. 
There is not a sentence in it that is not designed to bear 
on this point, and in some way to illustrate and familiar- 
ize the mind to the necessary truths of reason and the 
Bible which determine it. The question is merely one 
of fact, whether sin has its proposition in the plan of 
God, or must find it elsewhere. The reviewer assumes 
that it is of God, and then assumes that God is good not- 
withstanding. He says that he c has no theory to pre- 
sent on the subject.' But indeed he has, and has pre- 
sented it, and takes more than the last half of his arti- 
cle in stating and adjusting that theory, so that it shall 
be as little offensive as may be to the terms of reason 
and the moral sense. He does hold that God is the 
author of sin, in the sense of proposing and ordaining 
it in a scheme of things ; that it is His way of the Uni- 
verse ; that there is just as much sin and wrong in earth 
and hell, as much infraction of His law and resistance of 
His will, as He has ordained, as lies in His plan, and as, 
on the last analysis of the thought, God would have ; 
and then seeks to quiet the conscience by the quotation, 
'Even so, Father, for so it seemeth good in thy sight.' 
Yes, this is his theory ; and so inscrutable does it appear 
to him, that he does not attempt to give a reason for it, 
and he thinks no man will be able to. In this I certain- 
ly agree with him, and fully believe it will be forever 



86 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PRESS. 

beyond the ken of man or angel to appreciate such a 
dogma, or holding to it, to vindicate the ways of God 
to the intelligence he has given us. This is the re- 
viewer's theory, and he shows quite the ordinary adroit- 
ness in using all the common methods of speech, in 
trying to render it acceptable, and in parrying the 
assaults of reason and our necessary laws of belief upon 
it. But what is more to the point, he insists that it is 
my theory too, and that I ought to have written a larger 
book to make it plain. Now, I shall do no such thing. 
That is the dogma which has held the Evangelical 
Church spell-bound in the antinomianism of centuries, 
and long enough already. I do not hold it ; I repudiate 
it, as I would every method of foisting i the works of the 
devil' into the plan of God, and making them ingredients 
in the perfect methods and ways of the Infinite. My 
book is on the other side, and in my judgment, is large 
enough to contain the principles of the belief I entertain 
in this matter. It is my reviewer, and not myself, who 
believes that sinning is fulfilling the decrees of God. 
Let him prove the fact, that all the wickedness in crea- 
tion is ordained of God, and exists by His permission 
and consent, before he troubles himself more about the 
theory of such a fact, or the impossible reasons for it, or 
resorts to further disclaimers and abnegations, to ward 
off the blows of skepticism not only, but to repress the 
inevitable verities of the human mind. I hold the dog- 
ma to be a needless assumption and an obvious logical 
fallacy. I do not believe that sin exists through Divine 
ordination and consent. It is the inherent liability of a 
moral system, but no part of the economy of God. It 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PRESS. 87 

is the abuse of a moral system, and not a part of it, or 
the fulfillment of the design of its author. It is through 
another economy than that of God, and from another 
quarter. ' It is impossible but that offenses' may i come,' 
as it is true that they have and do ; but when they do 
come, it is through the aberrations of finite cause, in 
which aberrations is nothing of God. They may plead 
no Divine decree or arrangement in their behalf, and no 
Divine proposition or consent in their being. God's 
relations to sin are all on the other side, and are unique 
and characteristic of Himself, and in the line of all true 
virtue, and may be comprehensively appreciated and 
understood; and happy will it be, when the enigmas 
which a false philosophy has wrought into this subject 
shall be discarded, and men shall be allowed to look at it 
in the simple concrete of its appreciable truth. But I 
need not reiterate what, with more completeness, the 
work reviewed has said." 

We make a few more quotations in the form of crit- 
icism upon " The Problem Solved," that will convey, to 
those who have not read the volume, the general impres- 
sion which the work has produced upon intelligent 
minds. The first is from the " New York Observer :" — 

" An earnest and honest effort to achieve an impos- 
sibility. The result is of course. The able author re- 
jects the Beecher theory of original sin on the one 
hand, and the Princeton view on the other, and then 
proposing a third scheme, his own, he considers the 
Problem Solved. We admire his spirit, we respect his 
learning, we believe in his integrity, but we do not see 
through his solution of the great question. He pro- 



88 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PRESS. 

nounces i sin a method in the finite.' ' Moral evil, both 
as a method and a fact, is fully accounted for in finite 
cause. Sin is possible only in the finite, and through 
apostasy there.' But when we ask why God did not 
prevent finite creatures from sinning, we get no answer 
from our author which we have not had before. We 
commend the study of the book to those who are in- 
clined to investigate this subject. It has many great 
truths, well put. It exposes several popular theological 
errors, cuts them up root and branch, and lays a good 
foundation for further discussion. Perhaps others with 
clearer intellect than ours will get light from the author's 
theory. We speak of its effect on our own mind. It 
does not help us out of the dark ; others may be re- 
lieved." 

The second is from the ''Journal of Health," and is 
attributed to the Rev. Joel Parker,, D. D.: — 

" This is a discriminating and thoughtful book on a 
difficult subject. It is destined to make its mark on the 
age. It takes the bold position that God has not intro- 
duced sin into the world as a means to an end, nor in 
any proper sense willed its existence. It maintains that 
God can make and has made moral agents — -being so 
constituted that they are under no necessity to sin. A 
moral agent ' can will anything, and if he does not, it is 
for other reasons than a want of power.' ' ISTo intelligent 
agent was ever placed where he could not do right.'' It 
affirms that the Deity can so endow a creature that he 
shall become as truly a cause as God Himself, and that 
from the very nature of moral agency, when men volun- 
tarily do wrong, they choose it under a full conscious- 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PRESS. 89 

ness that they have the power to make an opposite 
choice. The questions raised are not the same as those 
which gave sharpness to the controversies of Calvin^ 
Arminius, Pascal, Toplady, Wesley, and Edwards. Dr. 
Squier is a profound and acute thinker. We have known 
him and his modes of thought for thirty years past ; but 
he has not written much, and we had no idea that he 
co aid have produced such a book. We commend it to 
all young theologians." 



Respecting the high merit, value, and useful tendency 
of the other work — " Reason and the Bible," there has 
been a remarkable agreement on the part of the period- 
ical press, and it gives great pleasure to introduce here 
some of the expressions of sentiment concerning it which 
the press has uttered, only premising that no notice 
seems to have been taken of a remarkable peculiarity of 
Dr. Squier* s style, reminding one of the Rhone, which 
is of a clear blue color on issuing from the Lake of Ge- 
neva, but is changed to brown by the accession of the 
Arve, a muddy stream which flows into it near the 
town of Geneva. Nothing can be desired more clear, 
strong, beautiful and terse, than large portions of this 
book, but ever and anon the author's special fondness 
for abstruse, obscure, self-invented, and peculiar forms 
of expression, tempts him unfortunately to let, at short 
intervals, the muddy Arve into the pellucid Rhone, and 
we then can see but little below the surface. This alter- 
nation of clearness and obscurity, of the best language 
of common life with the strange, and at times, almost 
unintelligible language of a recondite philosophy, is a 



90 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PRESS. 

very serious objection to the book for popular use, and 
for the highest practical value. If these obscure por- 
tions were modified, or even eliminated, or passed over, 
it would form an admirable text book in schools and 
colleges, and better adapted perhaps than Butler's 
Analogy to the greater number of those to whom the 
study of the latter is usually assigned. 

The following are the sentiments expressed by some 
of our most intelligent and reliable periodicals : — 

" Dr. Squier is a clear and vigorous writer. There is 
something refreshing in this style of writing. There is 
a philosophic method to be employed in religious truth, 
and we regard Dr. S.'s philosophy of the intelligence as 
cause, and of moral evil as an apostasy of will, as far 
more rational and scriptural than the speculations of 
those who denounce the use of reason in theology and 
lamentably betray the want of it." — JV. Y. Independent. 

"We are free to recommend this able treatise to the 
regards of intelligent readers, &c. It treats its subject 
with a precision, clearness, and force of thought and 
expression, that is worthy of sincere admiration. The 
work of Dr. Squier is creditable to his pen and his heart, 
and will, we have no doubt, do much good." — Christian 
Intelligencer. 

"It is a most important undertaking, to attempt to 
prove that the Bible and its doctrines are reasonable — 
are just what reason demands that they should be for 
man's wants. That Dr. Squier has attempted this should 
earn for him our gratitude. That he has succeeded so 
well demands our respect. The closing chapter on the 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PRESS. 91 

relations of moral evil, suggests an important view of that 
vexed question." — Congregationalist (Boston.) 

"Dr. Squier is an earnest student of some of the 
highest subjects of religion and philosophy. The rela- 
tions of faith and reason are the central topics of his 
investigations. That reason leads to faith is the key- 
note to this instructive volume. The tone and spirit in 
which the subject is discussed are worthy of all praise 
and imitation." — American Theological Review (N. Y.) 

" The work is able and attractive ; often it is compre- 
hensive and eloquent. We wish it the success and in- 
fluence to which its manifest excellence entitles it." — 
New Englander. 

"Christian philosophers will read this well-digested 
book with interest and profit, and find it rich in sugges- 
tive thought." — Eclectic Magazine. 

An interesting analysis and criticism of the work is 
given in the United States Journal, as follows : — 

" If the reader takes up this book with the impression 
that the entertainment to which he is therein invited is 
a mere rehash of the common arguments in support of 
the truth of Divine Revelation, drawn from the analo- 
gies of nature, from tradition and historic authorities, 
the first page he reads will convince him he has made a 
mistake. If his intention in looking into it be either to 
gratify an idle curiosity or to while away an idle hour, 
he will quickly discover that this work has been written 
for readers who are wide awake, and willing to i gird 
themselves' to grapple with great truths. The author 
sends his sounding line a long way below those surface 



92 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PRESS. 

currents of thought .-which may indeed float the almost 
Christian 'very certainly into the quiet harbor of an as- 
sured faith,' but which are powerless to disturb the dark 
depths of skepticism and infidelity which lie below them. 
It is not difficult to draw from nature and history weap- 
ons wherewith easily to rout the skirmishers on the 
outposts of the current infidelity of the day. But 
routed here, skepticism retreats into its citadel of blank 
negation — beyond the reach of such weapons. It boldly 
denies the validity of what is called nature, and indeed 
all objective phenomena, to prove the authenticity of a 
Divine Revelation or any thing else, and thus takes 
away all common ground on which even to initiate in- 
vestigation. Before, therefore, it can be even grappled 
with, it must be pursued to its retreats, behind nature 
and the objective, into the arena of consciousness and 
those intuitions of the intelligence which the objector 
can not deny, without first denying his own existence. 
And it is this which Dr. Squier, in the volume before us, 
has undertaken to do. He meets the objector upon his 
own ground. Starting with those truths which are re- 
cognized in the light of reason as absolute and necessary, 
he aims to show the essential harmony between them 
and the Bible, and thus compel the assent of the under- 
standing to the position that the author of the human 
soul must also be the author of the Bible. Having 
reached the sanctuary of the Divinity by this method, 
he comes back, and proceeding outwards from this cen- 
tral starting point, leads the objector with the open 
Bible in his hands, through the domain of nature up to 
' nature's God,' and finds in all the way the same essen- 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PRESS. 93 

tial harmony throughout ; thus realizing to the senses, 
as he has already demonstrated to the reason, the solid 
ground in which to fasten the i sure anchor of hope,' — 
the irrisistible conviction that the Divine Being has in 
fact made a revelation of himself to men, and that the 
Christian's Bible contains that revelation. Dr. Squier is 
a vigorous, stalwart thinker, and a terse and graphic 
writer. He is fearless, and evidently true to himself in 
the enunciation of his thoughts, and though not led by 
his convictions beyond the pale of evangelical orthodoxy 
with regard to any essential tenets of faith, still it is 
evident that reverence for creeds or ecclesiastical pre- 
scriptions exerts upon him but little restraining influence. 
The clearness with which he apprehends the truth of his 
own views induces a positiveness of statement which 
may at first sight look something like dogmatism, but on 
farther acquaintance we discover that it results from an 
apparent unconsciousness that candid and intelligent 
minds can disagree with him. Such earnestness of con- 
viction is delightful, and if his readers can not always 
agree, they will not be disposed to quarrel with him. 
His chapter on the ' Philosophic Method,' is an admirable 
piece of reasoning, and will be read by all intelligent 
persons with profit and pleasure. We commend this 
volume especially to two classes, namely, those who re- 
ject the Bible and feel safe in the rejection, and those 
who accept it, but are troubled with doubts." 

The character and the value of "Reason and the 
Bible" may be understood in part from a few quotations 
which are here subjoined. At the close of the chapter 



94 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PRESS. 

on " God in Reason," the author makes these two prac- 
tical reflections : — 

" First, The conviction that the being of God is an 
apprehension of the reason, direct, intuitive, and neces- 
sary, gives vitality to that sense of His presence at all 
times which religion teaches. We run not after the idea 
through lengthened processes of argument, nor find it 
suspended at the end of a complex demonstration, nor 
as can be only approximated there ; but like the prophet 
of Israel, we are enabled to say, c Now I behold thee, 
and mine eye seeth thee.' The idea of God becomes 
not so much an interence as a vision of the intellect, — 
not so properly a deductive conclusion, as an ever- 
present knowledge. We see Him, and do know Him. 
Anywhere and everywhere, ' the invisible things of Him 
from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being 
understood (apprehended) by the things that are made, 
even His eternal power and God-head.' The ideas of 
the reason, then, not only comprehend the declarations 
of the Bible at this point, but coalesce with the songs 
of poetry, and find rocks, hills, and vales, vocal with 
praise to Him, who is the Creator and Lord of all. 

" Second. Its advantage in prayer. There is an ap- 
positeness in addressing God, if he has thus j)ut Himself 
in communication with us. If reason apprehends Him, 
— if our intelligence beholds Him, — if it comprehends 
His being, and sees intuitively and perfectly that it can- 
not but be that He is, and is the infinitely perfect, pres- 
ent Jehovah ; — how correlative, — how connatural is 
prayer, — how lifelike our approaches unto God, — our 
adoration of Him, — our confession of sins in His ear, — 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PRESS. 95 

our imploring of forgiveness, — our acknowledgment of 
His goodness, and the commitment of our interests and 
ourselves into His hands. There is a vitality and nat- 
uralness, — a nearness and communion in this, that is all 
its own. There is a vividness and reality concerning 
the being of God, found here, which is well worthy of 
the effort after those higher analyses of our spiritual 
being, which our subject imposes, and which will give it. 
May we, then, covet this conviction of God in the Reason, 
— this vision and knowledge of Him, as there declared, 
and, like the solid granite of nature, may it underlie all 
the processes and superpositions which we have yet to 
lay upon it." 

Upon the Bible doctrine of the resurrection of the 
dead, the author thus presents, in striking and beautiful 
language the analogies of nature in support of it : — 

" Of the power of God ' to raise the dead,' none can 
doubt. We are surrounded with too many magnificent 
displays of His omnipotent energy and wisdom, in the 
actual economy of the universe, to question that any 
new modification of it, to meet the exigencies of the 
future, is equally within His pleasure and convenience." 

"Does, then, the present disclose any analogies of 
the future on this subject ?" 

" I discern something like it in the annual death and 
reviviscence of nature around us, in most of the lati- 
tudes of the earth. The leaves of autumn fall thick on 
every hand. The denuded forest looks drear and life- 
less, except that here and there an evergreen bespeaks 
an immortality. The currents of vegetable life are 
stopped, — the earth is locked up in frost, — the pall of 



96 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PRESS. 

death is thrown over it, and stern winter reigns in reck- 
lessness and desolation." 

" But on this scene how joyously looks out the young 
and buoyant spring ! All nature revives again. Forest 
and field are clothed with verdure and freshness ; ' The 
flowers appear on the earth ; the time of the singing of 
birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the 
land.' 'Man goeth to his labor till the evening,' and 
another cycle of activity and production revisits the 
earth." 

" There is in the planting of seed in the ground, and 
its reviving again, an analogy so striking and so illus- 
trative of the Christian doctrine of the resurrection, 
that it secured the regard of the Apostle, in the annun- 
ciation of that doctrine. 'That which thou sowest is 
not quickened except it die ;' ' Thou sowest not the 
body which shall be.' The husbandmen throws broad- 
cast into his prepared field, the naked seed — brings the 
earth over it, and buries it from his sight. The rains of 
heaven fall upon it, and after a time, a tender green 
spire shoots up through the overlying mould. You 
search for its source, and the kernel of wheat is not 
there. But a new life was in it, when planted in the 
ground. That life has been developed, and the stem 
and roots have shot forth. There is a reviviscence from 
the grave of the parent seed, which grows up into a re- 
constructed identity with the past, and waves at length, 
in all the luxuriance of harvest." 

" Animal life has like analogies. The silk- worm lives 
its day here, and does up its work, — weaves its own 
winding-sheet, — digs its grave, and dies in it. But look 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PRESS. 97 

there some ten days after, and you notice that a variega- 
ted, beautiful, winged insect has eaten its way out of 
that sepulchre, with new capacities of motion, and new 
instincts and habits of life altogether." 

" Transfer, now, your gaze to that joyous butterfly, 
yonder, buoyant in mid-air, over flood and field and 
flower, sporting in the sun-beam, and reflecting its hues 
and brightness. It is but the reviviscence of some 
worm at your feet, which had crept away in obscurity 
to die, and from whose unconscious chrysalis state it is 
thus metamorphosed, and reproduced, that emblem of 
ecstasy and delight you now behold it." 

" How different the new laid egg, from the perfected 
and sprightly form which, through a process of incuba- 
tion, at length bursts its shell, and leaps forth into life 
and activity from its dark enclosure 1 The embryo state 
of all animals, whether oviparous or viviparous, is as 
different from that which after is, as are our present 
body and state, and habits of existence here, ' from the 
body that shall be.' So that, in respect to the resurrec- 
tion of the body, as connected with the future life, we 
have many obvious and instructive analogies in the life 
that now is." 



Another volume will soon be published under the 
title of " The Being of God, Moral Government and 
Theses in Theology." Upon this the author bestowed 
his maturest thoughts, and never did his mind seem 
more clear and vigorous, and intent upon profound 
thought, than in the last months of his life. 

Some of the papers that follow this memoir, are of the 
7 



98 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PRESS. 

same argumentative, elaborate and abstruse character ; 
but those which relate to Europe and some others, will 
command, perhaps, more general acceptance, and be 
read with greater pleasure. They indicate an observing, 
thoughtful, practical and philosophical type of mind. 

It is important here to add that Dr. Squier contribu- 
ted a few productions to the American Tract Society ; 
and these have enjoyed a large and useful circulation. 
Their names, with the number that had been published, 
up to 1865, are as follows : — 

No. 446. The Stricken Bride, 376,000. 

" 464. Counsel to the Converted, 391,000. 

" 481 . Why are yon not a Christian ? 560,000. 

" 483. Why yet Impenitent ? 446,000. 

Her Feet go Down to Death, (about) . . 40,000. 
The aggregate number of copies circulated is, . . .1,813,000. 



INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER. 99 



CHAPTER X. 

INTELLECTUAL, SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS CHARACTER. 

Notices of the intellectual character of Dr. Squier are 
scattered through some of the previous chapters of this 
work, (particularly chapters VII, VIII, IX,) and the ma- 
terials are abundant in his miscellaneous writings, con- 
tained in this volume, for the reader to form thence a 
just estimate of it for himself. It is deemed, therefore, 
quite superfluous to add further remarks upon this sub- 
ject, though it gives great pleasure to subjoin the fol- 
lowing brief and very just estimate of Dr. Squier's in- 
tellectual character, from the pen of a highly competent 
judge, Rev. Prof. Wilson, of Hobart College, Geneva : — 

" Dr. Squier was no common man. He possessed a 
mind of very unusual grasp, and comprehensiveness of 
thought, and was probably as free from narrowness of 
views and bigotry as any man ever was, or as a man 
with any earnest convictions could well be. He pos- 
sessed a deep insight into character, and a large share 
of administrative ability. He was a profound thinker 
also, and remarkably fearless in the adoption of his opin- 
ions — though perfectly free from recklessness or harsh- 
ness — and with a remarkable boldness and vigor in as- 
serting what he believed to be true ; he always encour- 
aged both by word and manner, a like boldness and in- 
dependence in others. He was remarkably genial and 



100 DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL CHARACTER. 

good-hearted in his intercourse with others, and by his 
death has left a vacancy in the church to which he be- 
longed, in the social circle which he adorned, and in the 
hearts of those who loved him, which no other person 
can ever fill." 



The domestic and social character of Dr. Squier is thus 
portrayed by one who has known him intimately, and 
shared for weeks together the hospitalities of his house, 
for many years, and has thus enjoyed the best opportu- 
nities of reaching a correct conclusion : — 

" The social characteristics of Dr. Squier were best 
appreciated by residents in his household and by his oc- 
casional guests. He was given to hospitality and knew 
how to entertain those around him, so as to make them 
at perfect ease — free from every embarrassment. His 
deportment was gentle, affectionate and unostentatious. 
While in conversation he would conform to the wishes 
of others ; he was most in his element when speaking 
on topics of special interest, relating to science, litera- 
ture, general politics, history, morals and religion ; al- 
ways conversing like one who took a deep interest in 
the subject before him. His largeness of heart and his 
wide range of thought would then become manifest. 
He seldom indulged in trifling conversation. A little 
vein of artless pleasantry would sometimes appear. But, 
though generally grave, he was of a cheerful, happy 
temperament. His dwelling was no place for censori- 
ousness. Christian courtesy and kindness were delight- 
fully manifested in all his daily intercourse." 

" He was fond of children. His genial manner se- 



DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL CHARACTER. 101 

cured confidence and love as they would hang about 
him." 

" Those who bowed with him around the family al- 
tar felt that it was a hallowed place. He ever seemed 
like one in communion with the Holy One. For him 
to live was Christ. He eminently dwelt in God. ' He 
that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God.' His heart over- 
flowed with love." 



The domestic traits of Dr. Squier appear to great ad- 
vantage in his private correspondence which for many 
years has been preserved ; but it is chiefly interesting in 
revealing the arduous labors, the earnest zeal, self-sacri- 
fice, and devotion to his work which distinguished his 
efforts in behalf of Auburn Seminary, and subsequently 
as corresponding secretary and agent for the cause of 
Home Missions in Western New York. 

We obtain a very pleasing view of his character as it 
shone forth in his own house — the best place for the 
study of character — in the extracts here appended from 
a few of the letters written just after his death to Mrs. 
S., by some nephews and nieces, who seem to have ap- 
preciated in no common degree the great worth of their 
departed uncle, as a friend and relative : — 

" Dear Aunt Squier : — We have heard of dear Un- 
cle's triumphant death, and of the beautiful spirit of 
resignation with which you met this separation from one 
who has borne the burden of life with you through 
many years of changing experience. While our sym- 
pathies surround you in this hour of loneliness, we 
would not recall Uncle from the home his spirit longed 



102 DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL CHARACTER. 

to occupy. His life was so full of the Christian ele- 
ment, and his old age the ripening into an Indian sum- 
mer, whose gentle atmosphere was grateful to all who 
felt it, that it only needed this peaceful departure to 
give completeness and perfection of beauty to that life. 
May the God who befriended him be your supporter and 
comforter, now that this strong human prop is removed." 



" Uncle has been a very dear Uncle to me, and your 
visits to us as well as ours to your hospitable roof have 
always been bright and happy spots in my life. If a 
good Providence shall permit these visits to be repeated 
without him, as I hope it may, Ave shall feel his loss the 
more. It was a great blessing that the sainted one was 
permitted to speak such precious words of consolation 
to you all before his departure, and that Uncle Thomas 
and Aunt Mary were suffered to be present in these last 
sad yet joyful days. With how many mercies our Fa- 
ther tempers the cup of affliction He presents to our 
lips!" 



" Many times during the day do I peer over the space 
separating us, into your narrowed circle and refresh my 
heart by a look into your loved faces, and while I see 
you all at different hours of the day, evening or night, 
the great vacancy in your circle is ever present before 
me. But down from the shining hights above, a soft 
and soothing light is ever gilding the vacant seat at 
the table, the desk, the lounge, where full oft the weary 
body, so dear to us, used to rest. In place of the loving 
voice calling "wifey," vou catch an echo of that won- 



DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL CHARACTER. 103 

drous song of praise to Him who hath loved us and 
washed us in his own blood. You hear no more the fa- 
miliar step in the hall or about the house, but have only 
to shut the ear to earthly sounds, and there steals through 
the listening sense the tread of the ten thousand times 
ten thousand, and thousands of thousands as they come 
from the east and west, the north and south, to cast 
their crowns before Him 'who died and is alive again, 
and who liveth forever more.' Thus to me your beau- 
tiful home is surrounded and filled with these blessed 
reminders of the brighter, better home beyond." 



"My heart is with you in overflowing sympathy, in 
your hour of loneliness and bereavement ; your life-long 
companion taken from your side ; the tenderness and 
affection so long your support and happiness cut off by 
death, and no human voice will ever respond to your 
most secret thoughts so truly and understanding^ again. 
But my dearly beloved Aunt, I cannot really say cut of 
by death, nor can I, even with a full appreciation of your 
personal loss, mourn as I would for one without hope, — 
that hope anchored beyond the storms ! Dear, revered, 
loving Uncle Squier, gone ! but gone home ! and to his 
clear faith, the valley was nothing to pass through, 
while the light of heaven gleamed over it ; yes I al- 
most feel sure he had no doubts or fears : his logical 
mind and sound judgment gave him unerring trust and 
unruffled peace, which seemed always to say ' I know 
that my Redeemer liveth.' This has always been a 
pleasure for me to think of and I have so often wished 
that I might live near you or Aunt Mary with your no- 



104 DOMESTIC AXD SOCIAL CHARACTER. 

ble husband, to complement all that our poor weakness 
needs to guide, to help and support us, in human sym- 
pathy, so that I might gain something in the way of 
strength, by their wise and affectionate counsel. Dear 
Uncle ! your work is done ! earnestly and sincerely, and 
more and more in child-like humility, did you labor 
for your Master ; and now, all suffering, all care, all dim 
doubts, all haunting fears, all anxiety and weakness, ex- 
changed for clear sight, holy rapture and triumphant 
joy, in the presence of the Saviour who bought you ! 
Not one longing wish do you send for his return, as you 
stand gazing into heaven, but still the beautiful track of 
heavenly light his spirit left in its upward flight may 
rest upon the sad clouds of human sorrow. Oh you 
must miss him everywhere ! His heart always leant lov- 
ingly to you, my dear Aunt, (as well it might) and this 
is the foundation of our human loves and sympathies — 
very tender and kind in his feelings, and growing more 
so as he grew older, your hearts became more and more 
united." 



We add an extract from one more letter, that from T. 
P. Handy, Esq. : 

" I shall hardly be able to realize that Dr. Squier is 
no more. His death was quite unexpected both to my- 
self and Mrs. H. We have known him during these 
forty years only to esteem and love him. His pleasant 
and benign face was one of those I always delighted 
to look upon in my visits to Geneva. We shall greatly 
miss him not only in his society, but his counsels and 
his prayers. The church has sustained a great loss, for 



DOMESTIC AKD SOCIAL CHARACTER. 105 

he loved it, and labored for its welfare ; and his earnest 
prayers so often heard are now no more." 

" You need not mourn, my dear friend : he has only 
passed over the river but just before us, and is permit- 
ted to ' inherit the promises' while we are to tarry till 
the Master comes." 



A brief extract from the letter of another friend, illus- 
trative of the same social qualities, is subjoined: — 

"Not since my dear father's death have I been so 
deeply moved as when I heard that Dr. Squier had 
passed away from earth. He was next to my father. I 
had known, and revered, and loved him almost as long, 
and I always felt honored when he called me his child. 
How well I remember his first kindly and affectionate 
greeting when he met our family as strangers at the old 
Franklin House in Geneva, — it was a large-hearted wel- 
come, and he was ever the same genial and true friend, 
from that day down to the time when I last grasped his 
hand, three and a half years ago. It is to his memory 
as a warm-hearted friend, that I wish especially to bear 
my humble tribute." 

" I need not speak of him as a scholar, or as a Divine. 
There are monuments on every side of his ability, his 
energy, and his persevering industry. Let his works 
praise him." 



The religious tone and energy of Dr. Squier's mind are 
plainly discerned in his writings, but are also most beau- 
tifully and impressively exhibited in the account of his 
last days, presented in the following chapter ; set forth 



106 RELIGIOUS CHARACTER. 

also, and commended in all the letters of condolence and 
sympathy included in this memoir, to which, therefore, 
it will be sufficient to direct the reader's attention, that 
he may be furnished with ample and concurrent testi- 
mony to the religious attainments and spirit of our de- 
parted and revered friend. 

We have seen his character exhibited to great advan- 
tage, in the field of Christian enterprise, in the cause of 
Academic, Collegiate, and Theological Education, and 
in the planting and fostering of numerous churches in 
Western New York. It should not be omitted, that 
his character, as a Christian patriot, was ever prominent 
during our late National struggle, and that his influence 
in respect to it was, on all suitable occasions, strongly 
thrown in behalf of the right. The noble stand which 
he took in behalf of the American government, at the 
meeting of the Evangelical Alliance in Switzerland, in 
1861, entitles him to the esteem and the gratitude of 
every friend of a united, undivided country ; for it must 
be remembered that our national cause was at that time 
most unpopular in the European mind, and it required 
no small amount of moral courage to enter upon its de- 
fence in such a presence. How manly that defence 
was, may be seen on the perusal of his speech on a sub- 
sequent page in Part II., nor was that speech without an 
effective influence for good to our national cause. Ref- 
erence also should be made to the latter part of the 
second lecture on European Topics, in which are intro- 
duced the circumstances in which that speech was de- 
livered. 



FUNERAL SERMON. 107 

But the portraiture of Dr. Squier's character, social, 
intellectual and religious, is rendered more complete by 
here subjoining the graphic observations of the Rev. 
Dr. Hogarth, (his former pastor, and a most intimate 
friend,) which form the concluding portion of the 
Funeral Sermon, which he preached in Geneva, to his 
old congregation, from the text, " Blessed are the dead 
that die in the Lord." Rev. 14: 13. 



" It is fitting that I should render to you such brief 
judgment of this brother as my love for him will sug- 
gest, and all the facts of his life will sustain. He had 
his faults, and none knew them more thoroughly than 
he did. And he complained against himself with an 
honest self-reproach. If I should attempt the language 
of unmodified eulogy, the memory of his frankness and 
humility would reproach me. Such language, lie would 
say, can only be true of the 'Sinless One.' Be assured, 
I know that he would not ask me to say for him what 
he never said for himself. We leave his mistakes where 
we buried him, — and turn to such estimate of the man 
as a few moments will allow. 

" His social nature was genial. If at any time he 
seemed to be reserved or difficult of approach, it was 
probably owing to some occupation of the mind, or to 
some impression that his opinion or friendship was not 
really desired. He was specially frank in his feelings, 
and preserved his sympathies so fresh that the young 
found him a companion, and the men of his age found 
him a friend. 

His home was always open to the ministry, — and at 



108 FUNERAL SERMON. 

no man's board were they more cheerfully welcomed, or 
more generously entertained. He was happy always 
when a large circle was about him, and full of enjoy- 
ment. It may be that his absence from home on his 
agencies, and an occasionally cold reception, such as 
agents meet, taught him the lesson of a christian cour- 
tesy and hospitality. But the lesson came to a nature 
that was prompt to receive it: and so his heart often 
overflowed to meet and greet his friends. He knew how 
to sympathize with the afflicted. He was not formal 
and ostentatious in his sympathy. While I was with 
you, God called to Himself one of my own babes. He 
came to me in that new experience of grief as no other 
man came, and spoke to me not in the usual formula of 
condolence with the afflicted. He said nothing of the 
duty of submission, — of the more happy state of the 
dead and other things to which only the blindest and 
most formal assent could be given. But he talked of 
the humanity and brotherhood of Jesus, until I found 
myself leaning upon Him with a heart calmed and sus- 
tained by the words of love. This power of Mr. 
Squier did not come from any similar experience, for he 
had none, — but from a gentle nature, sanctified by the 
grace of God. 

" His geniality was obvious in the rare control of his 
speech which always distinguished him. Few men had 
more occasion at times for bitterness of speech, because 
few suffered more from that cause. I have yet to find 
the man who knew him to indulge in severe language 
by way of retaliation. The public acts of a public man 
that were open to criticism, he fairly canvassed. But he 



FUNERAL SERMON. 109 

was not petulent with his tongue. He was accustomed 
to apologize for the severe things said of himself, by re- 
plying — that he was misunderstood — that the persons 
never intended what their language involved — that they 
could not desire to harm him. This forgiving temper 
was constant, — and these words were not the freak of a 
momentary feeling of good nature. 

" As a part of this geniality, there was in him a quaint 
and quiet humor, lying, as it always does, near to his 
highest piety and best faculties. It was not gross, — did 
not find indulgence in coarse jests, and in practical 
jokes. But there was a keen sensibility to real wit, and 
his gratification at the expression of it would ripple over 
his face in a most happy smile. There were fountains 
of good feeling in him, and they were not sealed foun- 
tains. And so, h,e was full of cheerful talk, and made a 
pleasant companion. 

" His mind was at once comprehensive and growing. 
It was always in training. At no time was he indiffer- 
ent to the ideas that moved the men of thought. After 
all his agencies had been resigned^ and he had time at 
his command, he was often in the study. This tendency 
to intellectual pursuits always interested him in schools 
and colleges, and accounts for his connection with them 
through so many years of his life. That interest never 
abated. 

" Moreover, he read much with his pen in hand, and 
made full notes of the suggestions which his reading 
awakened. Only a studious and industrious man will 
employ his pen. The drift of his mind was to philo- 
sophical study. It even entered into his sermons ; and 



110 FUNERAL SERMON. 

men who live by excitement more than by reflection, 
sometimes thought they lacked the emotional element. 
The things which he wrote, and his general conversa- 
tions showed rather a penetration into given themes, 
than a broad culture. He did not so much prosecute 
general scholarship as particular lines of thought for 
which the bias of his mind fitted him. A man's library 
indicates usually the breadth and scope of his reading. 
The range of topics which he treats suggests his modes 
and direction of thought. He read and wrote within 
the sphere of mental and moral philosophy. In these 
studies he was constantly seeking in the human mind a 
rational basis on which to stand and address men on the 
grand themes of the gospel. He aimed to find and un- 
fold a philosophy that sustains God's moral sovereignty, — 
man's personal free-agency and consequent responsibili- 
ty, — the personal agency of man in his own sinfulness, — • 
the honest intention of a salvation offered to his accept- 
ance, — and his ability, under an economy of grace, to 
accept that salvation. He felt the difficulty of urging 
men to receive a gospel which philosophy said they had 
no power to accept. He attempted a solution and re- 
statement of the principles involved in the adjustment 
of the difficulties clinging to this subject. His path 
was at right angles with the old philosophy, in many 
respects, and not always in harmony with the accredited 
and installed theology. With all deference to his own 
judgment on the 'salient points' of his life, I must 
affirm my conviction that the salient point reached him 
when he was liberated from the power of his own past, 
and found his account with his own mind in the use of 



FUNERAL SERMON. Ill 

his own powers. That personal freedom from the tram- 
mels of authority and the technicalities of creed, was 
the grand act of emancipation which advanced him an 
half century in his studies. Men will differ on the 
question, whether he succeeded in the solution of all the 
implied problems. They cannot doubt that the attempt 
was honest and the treatment thorough. I think it 
mainly successful. He died in the full conviction that 
truth will ultimately be found in the direction indicated 
by his own lines of thought. These two continents of 
thought — the philosophical and the religious — may not be 
united by this cable which he laid. But the main course 
and soundings will be safe for some other attempt At 
least he was in sympathy with the broadest thinking of 
his time. The things which he has written will remain, 
and will prove that his brain was not idle in a stirring 
age. 

" His religious experience was in sympathy with his 
habits of thought, — for there was symmetry in his sys- 
tem, and in his general character. His type of religious 
life was not largely emotional. And yet, I am told, 
that through your last revival he was overflowing with 
tender solicitude, and fervent prayer, and was always in 
the place of daily worship when his health permitted. 
Still I should say his religion was not of the demonstra- 
tive sort, — not sportive and fitful, and kaleidoscopic. It 
was rather principled, — having its roots in the truth, 
and in faith. He could give *' reason for the hope that 
was in him.' His life could be stated in appreciable 
terms. It was a religion of intelligence as well as of feeling, 
that sustained and ruled him. It was therefore reliable, 



112 FUNERAL SERMON. 

and not subject to the painful alternations which mark 
the purely emotional type of piety. When, at the last, 
however, his faith rose to full assurance, his communion 
with Jesus was very touching in its tenderness, and 
bursts of gratitude and joy broke from his lips. But 
the time of * open vision' was drawing on, and his full 
heart uttered all the joys that had lain silent in its quiet 
depths. 

" So fashioned by nature and by grace, — so improved 
by culture, this friend and brother was with us for many 
years. He loved Christ and trusted Him to the end. 
Those i statutes that were his song in the house of his 
pilgrimage,' are his fuller song in his enduring home. 
e Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord.' " 



HIS LAST DAYS. 113 



CHAPTER XL 

HIS LAST DAYS. 

For several months before his departure, Dr. Squier 
had manifested an uncommon interest in the promotion 
of the Redeemer's kingdom. God favored Geneva, 
during the winter and spring, with a large outpouring 
of His Holy Spirit, which seems to have originated in 
a Morning Union Prayer Meeting, of different denom- 
inations, which commenced the second week in January, 
and is still continued. 

These and other meetings Dr. Squier, though in quite 
feeble health, attended several times a week, up to the 
period when bodily prostration at length confined him 
to his house ; and scarcely ever did he attend a meeting, 
without rising in his place, and lifting up his voice in 
prayer, and pouring forth words of christian wisdom 
and exhortation. His soul was evidently full and over- 
flowing with thoughts and sentiments bearing on the 
great question of human salvation and the glory of God. 
He was often heard to say, during these months, that he 
felt he was doing up his last works, and would soon 
enter into his rest. And none could witness these 
spontaneous, frequent, constant, spiritual labors for the 
good of souls, and not suspect that the Great Master 
Avas preparing him to " go up higher." It must be re- 
membered that he had at this time no pastoral charge ; 
8 



114 HIS LAST DAYS. 

was under no formal obligations thus to labor, but was 
prompted solely by love to the place of prayer, the 
cause of truth, and the God of Zion. 

When he was no longer able to meet with God's peo- 
ple in the place of daily Morning Prayer, and especially 
when he had been called to minister in the upper sanc- 
tuary, they deeply and tenderly felt the loss of his pres- 
ence, and co-operation and sympathy. For many days, 
during his last illness, it was most edifying and affecting 
to hear the earnest, heart-felt prayers and thanksgivings 
which they poured forth in relation to him before the 
mercy seat. The place of prayer seemed nothing less 
than an ante-chamber of heaven. And for weeks, after 
the good man's departure, the frequent references to the 
grace of God which had been manifested in his chamber 
of sickness and of death, diffused through all hearts the 
spirit of the heavenly world, and exerted a most saluta- 
ry and delightful influence. 

The last sickness of Dr. Squier was of but few days 
duration, and attended with no disturbance or impairing 
of his strong and active mental powers. It was only a 
gradual and yet somewhat rapid failure in the bodily 
functions and strength, so that the interviews with 
Christian friends were mutually gratifying and instruc- 
tive. For nearly a week before he passed away, he felt 
assured that each day would be the last, and he so ex- 
pressed himself to his friends, accompanied with the 
utterance of desire that it might be the laot. This arose 
not from any bodily suffering from which it would be 
natural to desire relief; nor from anything disagreeable 
or painful in his domestic relations, for never was there 



HIS LAST DAYS. 115 

a fonder husband than he, nor a more devoted wife than 
she who waited on him day and night with most affec- 
tionate and careful and tender assiduity; nor had he 
anything to complain of in other attendant circum- 
stances, for he was blessed with a beautiful residence 
and with all the home attractions that his heart could 
demand. The only explanation that can be given of 
his desire to depart, of his impatience indeed to depart, 
is to be sought in the attractions that God had thrown 
about the heavenly state, and in the strength of faith 
and holy love which the Divine Spirit had created in 
the breast of the dying saint. 

The calmness, the serenity, the collectedness, the 
careful thoughtfulness about .the comfort of her whom 
he was so soon to leave a widow, the calm arrangement 
of all the circumstances of his approaching funeral, the 
eager expectation of soon entering upon the great tran- 
sit to the other world — all these were fitted to produce 
in the beholder a profound impression of the power ot 
faith in the unseen and the eternal — and of the unspeak- 
able value of such an assurance of hope as to the 
Christian's inheritance beyond the grave. 

INTERVIEW WITH REV. T. M. HOPKINS, GENEVA. 

Mr. Hopkins thus writes : — 

At my first call upon Dr. Squier, he expressed him- 
self somewhat surprised that I had not called before. 
This explained, he spoke in general terms of the present, 
as being beyond a doubt, his last illness ; that he re- 
garded himself "in readiness to depart and be with 
Christ," and as being glad that he was about to exchange 
this mortal for immortality. 



116 HIS LAST DAYS. 

The writer then mentioned the fact, that the views 
which he (Dr. S.) had advanced on the great points of 
Christian Theology had been widely, perhaps far more 
widely extended and generally embraced than he was 
aware of; that these views had done much to modify 
and mould the opinions of men on the great themes of 
religion, throughout the circle of his acquaintance ; 
that many, upon coming in contact with them, had 
found great relief on points which before were not 
clear. He replied, " I am gratified, very much, to hear 
you say that; am inclined to think it is, in some re- 
spects, so, as I have heard others (naming several) make 
very similar statements." 

After a few moments pause, lie added : " I have been 
reviewing, so far as I was able, the great themes in 
theology and religion, upon which I have dwelt for the 
past thirty or forty years, and on many of which I have 
written, such as the Being of God, the incarnation, the 
crucifixion, etc., etc. The elements of Christianity, one 
by one, I have endeavored to look at from my present 
position as a new stand-point, with a view to determine 
how far I may say that I fully believe them. I have 
looked at the subject of God in Christ, reconciling the 
world unto Himself, and have found my faith, my con- 
fidence in that arrangement, greatly strengthened. I 
have ventured so far as to inquire if the recorded fact, 
that Christ was born of a virgin, seemed in harmony 
with what we know of the Infinite and His purposes. 
I do not speak of this," he added, " as anything new or 
uncommon in the line of my investigations, for I have 
often had my attention directed to that single point with 



HIS LAST DAYS. 117 

a feeling of deep and indescribable interest, deeper per- 
haps than to almost any other in the great scheme, and 
I am satisfied, fully, that it is all right ; that it could 
not have been otherwise than as it is, if God would save 
lost man. It could not be altered in any respect with- 
out destroying the whole plan, or frustrating the pur- 
poses of an infinitely wise God." 

Many things were uttered by him, of a similar import, 
which cannot be here repeated ; but, one general re- 
mark we can make, as we close the record of our first 
interview with him at that time. He seemed to have 
been placed, in the Providence of God, where he could 
survey the past at a single glance, (a fact that he ap- 
peared to be fully conscious of,) and the view which he 
took of his investigations, as well as his decisions, was 
even more than satisfactory. 

After a day or two I called again; he was much 
weaker in body, but so far as could be seen, quite as 
strong in mind. He could converse but little ; but as 
far as any one could see, his mind was as clear and as 
vigorous as ever. He had no desire to stay a moment 
after it should please our Heavenly Father to call him 
away. The question was put to him, as to his present 
support ; " whence do you draw your greatest consola- 
tion ? What is it upon which your eye fixes, when you 
go in search of *the foundation upon which you now 
rest with so great satisfaction f He paused for a mo- 
ment, as if casting about in mind for an answer. Dur- 
ing that pause, it was stated to him, that when Dr. 
Watts was on his dying bed, the same, or a very similar 
question was put to him, and he replied, " I am finding 



118 HIS LAST DAYS. 

my chief support from those plain and simple promises 
in the Word of God, which, during my active life, I 
was so unwise, as, in a measure, to overlook. My mind 
is now satisfied with repeating over and again, 'I will 
never leave thee, nor forsake thee : lo ! I am with thee 
alway, even unto the end.' " 

The thought seemed to interest him very much : he 
appeared instantly to be engaged in applying it to his 
own case : " Yes," said he, " that is it ; there am I ; in 
days of health and bodily strength, it was more in ac- 
cordance with my inclination, or bent of mind, to be 
endeavoring to master those strong points which are 
sometimes left in the back grounds of theology. I 
certainly overlooked those plain and easy promises which 
are now my chief support, and the source of my pres- 
ent consolation. I love to throw myself wholly upon 
them." 

He then desired the writer to repeat some of them, 
which he did. One he failed to repeat correctly ; the 
dying man took it out of his mouth, corrected and 
finished it. As expressive of his present condition and 
future prospects, the triumphant words of the Apostle 
were here introduced, — "For I am now ready to be 
offered and the time of my departure is at hand ; I have 
fought a good fight," etc., etc. The mistake was made 
of "the crown of glory," instead of that of "righteous- 
ness" which he here corrected as before. He asked us 
to sing some of those precious hymns which he had 
been accustomed to sing in the meetings of the past 
winter ; and named, " Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to 
Thy bosom fly." 



HIS LAST DAYS. 119 

The hymn was sung, according to his request, by all 
present that could sing. He not only seemed to unite 
with us in the most cordial and happy manner, but ap- 
peared to be borne away from earth by its expressive 
sentiment. "Now," said he, "We will unite with 
brother Hopkins in a short prayer ; one right to the 
point. Come and kneel down close to me, that I may 
hear and follow you without difficulty." A request 
which was at once complied with ; and we parted to 
meet, as we hope and believe, in heaven. T. M. H. 

LAST INTERVIEW WITH REV. DR. GRIDLET, REV. A. A. WOOD, 
REV. J. J. PORTER, AND OTHERS. 

The following paper also, from Dr. Gridley, will be 
read with deep interest : — 
• Waterloo, 15th August, 1866. 

My Dear Brother : — You have requested some rem- 
iniscences of an interview which I had with my late 
friend, Dr. M. P. Squier, a few days before his death. I 
lave delayed compliance with your request, both on ac- 
count of urgent professional and other causes, and the 
lope that you would secure from a more competent 
land what you ask from mine. In the visit to which 
jou refer, I was accompanied by Rev. J. J. Porter, of 
Vatertown ; Dr. Wood, and Messrs. Dunn and Smith, 
(£ Geneva. 

As Mr. Porter and myself had not seen Dr. Squier 
diring his illness, we suggested to his wife, that, on 
eitering his room we should be seated near his bed. 
lb received us all very cordially, and expressed his 
phasure in seeing our faces. His pale countenance and 
fetble hand indicated that life was receding, and both 



120 HIS LAST DAYS. 

himself and family were hourly looking for his depar- 
ture. Our call was made on Monday, and, if my recol- 
lection serves me, this was the day upon which his 
mind had previously fixed for his ascension to glory. 

His ability to converse, however, somewhat surprised 
us. His thoughts, it is true, were uttered with deliber- 
ation, indicative of physical weakness, and yet with 
strength of voice and distinctness of articulation vhich 
rendered them quite intelligible. His stand-point, his 
vision, his manner, and even his language were those of 
the Christian philosopher ; and, for the space of some 
ten minutes, he descanted upon the high themes of the 
gospel, in a manner that held our attention as the skill- 
ful professor would hold the minds of his pupils. In 
speaking of himself, he said that he had seen enough of 
earth, and was now ready to lay off the body, and then 
expatiated upon the enlarged liberty which his soul 
would experience in its almost unlimited range, and in 
its access to sources of knowledge and enjoyment here 
unknown. 

When asked if, in his circumstances, Jesus as a Sa- 
viour was his full and satisfying reliance, he gave the 
logical reply — " Of course ; there is no other way of life, 9 
and proceeded to speak of the relations of the Saviour 
to the wants of the world. His mind, so far as W3 
could discover, was as clear as a morning without cloudi. 
Indeed the mastery of the intellect, the control of the 
reason was so complete, as to hold the emotional part *f 
his nature in perfect check. His whole manner was is 
composed as it could have been in his study, in fill 
health, and in free conversation with friends on lis 



HIS LAST DAYS. 121 

favorite topics. In the circumstances, this preponder- 
ance of the intellectual became at first a little oppressive 
to his brethren. Not that those of us who knew him 
best were surprised, or uninterested in what he uttered. 
On the contrary, we recognized the thoughts, the man- 
ner and language, as in perfect keeping with his habits 
of thinking, and form of expression, when in health. 
We were instructed. Our own minds were quickened 
by contact with his, as iron sharpeneth iron. And yet, 
we desired some digression from the high current of his 
discourse, or rather some application of truth to our 
own souls, which his past experience and present posi- 
tion so eminently fitted him to make. We were almost 
impatient, that our brother when resting so calmly on 
hopes anchored within the veil, should lose any time in 
communicating to us words of earnest entreaty that we 
should prepare also for the coming of the Son of Man. 
We knew the kindness of his heart. We knew that 
his soul was a well of emotion, and that the fountain 
when smitten would send forth its waters. We ven- 
tured therefore to ask for a word of counsel and exhor- 
tation, which proved as effectual as the rod of Moses in 
securing water to his thirsty countrymen. At first he 
replied, that what he had said had been directed to us, 
and then added in earnest and emphatic tone, " Work on 
brethren, work on, work on for Jesus" 

At this point it seemed necessary to relieve him from 
further conversation, and prayer was proposed ; and the 
earnestness with which he responded to the petitions 
offered, showed how entirely he rested on the grace of 
God through the Gospel. 



122 HIS LAST DAYS. 

We soon took leave of him, with impressions we shall 
not soon forget. In some respects, this interview sur- 
passed in interest and instruction anything of the kind 
which had fallen under our observation. Never were 
we so sensibly reminded that a constitutional bias, or a 
habit of thought and life, or " ruling passion," is strong 
in death. Rarely, if ever, have we seen such advantage 
of the mental and spiritual over the mortal, or such en- 
tire forgetfulness of death as an enemy. The quiet, sun- 
light, peace, victory, of this brother, was as complete as 
one can conceive to be possible on this side of the grave. 
What lies beyond the valley so occupied his vision, that 
the crossing seemed of no account. The waters of the 
dark river were already divided, leaving a path so 
illumined with the pillar of fire, that the pilgrim coveted 
the word that should bid him to pass over. 

We have been happy to learn from members of the 
family, that this assurance of hope continued to the last ; 
that no shade of change appeared save in this — that as 
the hour of release drew nearer, the intellectual gave 
more and more place to the emotional, and the convic- 
tions and manly faith of the Christian philosopher be- 
came more perfectly imbued with the tenderness and 
affection of the little child. 

Your brother, 

Rev. J. R. Boyd. S. H. Gridley. 

LAST INTERVIEWS WITH THE EDITOR. 

Less than a week before he passed away, Dr. Squier 
sent for the writer, to ask him to take charge of the pa- 
pers which he should leave behind for publication, and 



niS LAST DAYS. 123 

•v 

though expecting to live scarcely another day, he con- 
ducted the interview with all the calmness and compos- 
ure that could have been exercised in perfect health. 

Two days after, the writer had with him a last inter- 
view, which he never can forget, nor remember without 
profit and gratitude. It was indeed a privilege to visit 
the death-bed of Mr. Squier. It was not a scene of 
melancholy gloom, of doubt, of distrust, of alarm, or of 
apathy or indifference. It was not the scene so often 
witnessed, of a clinging to earth, and of an unwilling- 
ness to be torn from it ; it was one of peaceful, conten- 
ted, happy resignation to the Divine will, under the 
conviction that this sickness was to be his last; nay, 
it was a scene of joyful hope in Christ and assurance of 
heaven, and desire to be freed from the incumbrance of 
an earthly tabernacle. One day he said, " Why should 
I be confined to this little speck of earth when I may 
soon have the freedom of the universe f He longed to 
depart and to be with Christ. He consciously enjoyed 
even here, the sustaining, the comforting and strength- 
ening presence of his Saviour. 

On the occasion above referred to. he said to me, as 
I stood beside him, " What is that about the general 
assembly ?." Discerning the drift of his question, I read 
to him from Heb. xn, " Ye are come unto Mount Zion, 
and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jeru- 
salem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the 
general assembly and church of the first-born, which are 
written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to 
the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the 
Mediator of the New Covenant, and to the blood of 



124 HIS LAST DAYS. 

sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of. 
Abel." 

" What does that mean," said he, "to whom does it 
apply?" " To true Christians," I answered, "to such 
as you, and in a brief space you will know far more of 
its high and precious import than any of us can now 
conceive." 

When I was reading the passage, he looked up to me 
with such an obviously appreciative faith in what was 
read, and with such uncommon interest in every word, 
as was deeply touching, and this, connected with the 
circumstance that both he and I expected he would, ere 
another day, be transported to that very Mount Zion — 
the heavenly Jerusalem, and into the presence of Jesus 
the Mediator of the New Covenant, gave an intensity 
of meaning, and a deep reality to the scene described 
by the Apostle, never before understood or felt. 

" Read me some more," he said, at the same time af- 
fectionately pressing my arm, which he held during the 
interview, and which he often pressed as if to indicate 
his approval of what was read and his acceptance of it, 
and delight in it. "Read me some more." I turned to 
the next chapter of Hebrews and read: — "He hath said, 
I will never leave thee nor forsake thee ; so that we may 
boldly say, the Lord is my helper, and I will not fear 
what man shall do unto me." "Jesus Christ, the same 
yesterday, to-day, and forever." " Here have we no 
continuing city, but we seek one to come." "Now the 
God of peace that brought again from the dead our 
Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through 
the blood of the everlasting Covenant, make you per- 



HIS LAST DAYS. 125 

feet in every good work to do his will, working in you 
that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus 
Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever, Amen." 

"Read some more," he added. I then turned to 1st 
Pet., 1: 3, and read, "Blessed be the God and Father of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abund- 
ant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by 
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an 
inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth 
not away, reserved in heaven for you who are kept by 
the power of God through faith unto salvation ready 
to be revealed in the last time." "Jesus Christ, whom 
having not seen ye love, in whom though now ye see 
him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable 
and full of glory ; receiving the end of your faith, even 
the salvation of your souls." "Hope to the end for 
the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revela- 
tion of Jesus Christ." "Ye were not redeemed with 
corruptible things as silver and gold, from your vain 
conversation, but with the precious blood of Christ as 
of a Lamb without blemish and without spot." "All 
flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower 
of grass. The grass withereth; and the flower thereof 
fadeth away ; but the word of the Lord endureth for- 
ever." 

Having read these precious words, so admirably suited 
to sustain and comfort the good man in view of his de- 
parture so near at hand, he drank them in as a very 
thirsty man would drink the purest and coolest water. 
Still he was not satisfied. " Give me some more," he 
again said. I turned then to the second chapter, and 



126 HIS LAST DAYS. 

read, " To whom coming as to a living stone, disallowed 
indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious, ye also, 
as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy 
priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to 
God by Jesus Christ." " Unto you therefore which be- 
lieve he is precious." 

Here I paused, and then said, "My dear brother, these 
are your 'provisions for passing over Jordan,' an expres- 
sion used I think by Mrs. Isabella Graham, or by Dr. 
Scudder, I do not recollect which." "It was Mrs. Gra- 
ham," he remarked. "Well," said I, "these are the 
provisions which God this day supplies you with, to 
sustain you in passing over Jordan, and I hope to meet 
you hereafter on the other side." To which he replied 
by a silent pressure of my arm and by an expressive 
look of expectation and of pleasure. Oh, how refresh- 
ing, how appropriate, how life-giving those grand and 
solemn truths appeared, when read under such peculiar 
circumstances ! In a few moments he repeated with 
great emphasis the line, 

" Jesus, lover of my soul." 

" Yes," remarked I, "Jesus has been, is now, and ever 
will be the lover of your soul ; and oh, how great, how 
matchless, how invaluable that love !" On parting with 
him, he bade me "good-by," as though only for a day. 



Early one morning, two or three days before he left 
the world, he said, " Oh, must I pass another day on 
earth? I had hoped ere this to be at home ;" and at the 
close of a certain day, in looking out upon the setting 



HIS LAST DAYS. 127 

sun, he said, " How glorious ! and yet how much more 
glorious must its Maker be !" 

On one occasion, he said to his friends, " What have 
I any longer to pray for % God the Father is mine ; 
Jesus Christ is mine; the Comforter is mine; things 
present and things to come are mine ; the universe is 
mine. What more can I have?" He said he did not 
want a gloomy funeral ; he did not wish his survivors 
to be sad or weep, or to put on the habiliments of 
mourning for him, but to rejoice in the happier condi- 
tion to which he was about to be advanced. He wished 
that the funeral address might not be composed of the 
usual topics of death, the grave, the bereavement ; but 
treat of the resurrection, the life to come, the grace and 
goodness of God towards him in his last hours. 

At another time he said to a number of friends, "lam 
such a little floating speck in the wide universe, it al- 
most seems that God might forget me." " Not if the 
very hairs of your head are numbered," answered one. 
" That's it, that's it," rejoined he, with evident satisfac- 
tion. 

" Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the 
only wise God, be honor and glory everlasting," was 
repeatedly uttered by him with a smile. Once he ob- 
served, " I seem to be floating in an ocean of love. I 
am this morning baptized in love." He would, when 
he supposed himself to be alone, often talk to his 
precious Saviour in words like these, "I love Thee: 
Thou knowest, dear Saviour, that I love Thee ; and Thou 
lovest me. I am satisfied in Thy love, dear, dear Sa- 



128 HIS LAST DAYS. 

yiour. I love Thee, and Thou hast a heart of love to 
me." 

Of his physician, Dr. Merrill, he once inquired, " Do 
you think my dear Redeemer is coming for me to- 
day? I am peaceful and happy, but anxious to go and 
to be with Jesus, rather than remain. I want you and 
other friends to pray for my speedy departure, if the 
good Lord be willing." At another time he said to his 
physician, "I don't believe Jesus will forget his prom- 
ises, but yet I cannot help sometimes reminding Him 
of them a little, just a little." 

Two days before his death, he drew his physician 
gently towards him, and said in a whisper, "God is 
mine, Jesus is mine, and so all things, past, present and 
future. There remains nothing more for me to ask. I 
am only waiting to receive the glorious inheritance." 
His physician says of him — " The day before his death 
he spoke of himself as beyond the need of our feeble 
prayers. His spirit seemed, indeed, to have entered 
heaven many hours before his body ceased to breathe." 

At another time he said, " How long do you think I 
shall be detained here in this little part of God's works'? 
I have done with earth. I want not things past, nor 
things present. I have only to do with the future — the 
higher state of being. I have done with earthly things. 
I do not wish to stay in this little space of earth when 
my Heavenly Father has such an unbounded universe 
in which I may live and act. I expect my Father will 
find me work there to do : I shall not be idle. I do not 
know wjiat He will make me do for Him. I may be 
sent to other worlds on His errands of love." 



HIS LAST DAYS. 129 

One day his physician said to him, " You want to go 
so much that it is hard to benefit you by medicine ; it 
does you no good." He replied, "I will take your med- 
icines, and do all you direct, but this old body you can- 
not raise up, its work is done." 

To Dr. Dayton, coming into his room, he addressed 
the inquiry, " Why am I kept here yetf Dr. D. re- 
plied, " You never preached so powerfully as now from 
this death-bed. We deeply feel in our morning prayer 
meeting such a testimony of the power of the gospel to 
sustain in the dying hour." "Oh," said he, "I never 
thought of it in that view. I will try to be patient." 

As his wife was entering the room on one occasion, 
he waved his hand and said, "I love you, but I want to 
leave you. When will you let me go 1 Why keep me 
here 1" She replied, " I shall soon be with you." He 
said, " No ; you must stay a little longer ; you may be 
ten years behind me ; be a cheerful Christian ; don't 
cover your face in a black vail, as though you were of- 
fended with God ; 'tis a heathenish practice, not Chris- 
tian ; don't go about hanging your head ; let all see that 
you are cheerful under affliction ; you will have to lay 
this old body up there, (in the cemetery,) but I shall not 
be there — 'tis only the body. Don't let your heart rest 
in the grave — it contains the shell — the butterfly has 
left it. I shall not be at my funeral, yet one should re- 
spect himself enough to have every thing done decent- 
ly." He then gave specific directions about his coffin — 
his dress therein — the place the coffin should occupy at 
the funeral exercises — the course of the procession to 
the grave. He also suggested who should preach his 



130 HIS LAST DAYS. 

funeral sermon, in accordance with his wife's wishes. 

Very early oh the Thursday before he died, he asked 
for his sister Hastings to pray with him, but on learning 
that she had not yet risen, he said to his wife, " We will 
pray together." Her prayer ended, he followed in a 
very sweet, loving address to his Saviour God; there 
was a familiarity in all his addresses to the Infinite, 
which seemed as though he was away from earth. 

Such was the general tone of his mind during the 
last ten days of his earthly life, with the exception of a 
few hours of mental darkness and distress about a week 
before his departure, when the vision of past sins 
troubled him ; but ere long he exclaimed, in substance, 
" I was in great darkness and trouble, but my gracious 
Saviour has let down his hand over the awful cloud and 
lifted me up again into the sunlight of his presence." 

When interrogated with regard to the views which 
he entertained of the next world, he said that they cor- 
responded much with those which the late Dr. Hitch- 
cock of Amherst College had described, as cherished by 
himself during a season of illness. He seemed impa- 
tient to enter upon a more expanded field of action, of 
observation, and enjoyment than he could have in the 
body. He once said, " I don't know what my Father 
may give me to do, but I expect to be active in the 
wide universe of God." 

Once he requested his brother-in-law, Dr. Hastings, 
to sing his favorite Psalm, (the 90th.) : — 

" O God, our help in ages past, 

Our hope for years to come, 
Our shelter from the stormy blast, 

And our eternal home." 



HIS LAST DAYS. 131 

The last time the household were gathered around his 
bed for family prayers, he looked on them all as they 
were seated, and waving his hand he said, " I love you 
all, but I desire to leave you" The last part of xv. of 1st 
Corinthians was read, and the 23d Psalm. " The Lord 
is my Shepherd" was sung, Dr. Hastings leading. Dr. 
Squier then raised his hand and pointed to him, and 
said, " That is not quite it. I have done with present 
and past, and have only to do with the other world ; 
sing 'My Heavenly Home.' " They then sang, 

" My home is in Heaven, my rest is not here," &c, 
in a part of which he joined vocally. 

He had taken leave of each member of the family at 
different intervals during the last week, in an informal 
manner. His farewell to his wife was given early on 
Wednesday morning, a Christian neighbor only being- 
present with her. It was calm, gentle, tender, simple, 
conveying to her his testimony as to her wisdom in coun- 
sel, her constancy of devotion to his comfort and hap- 
piness all through their married life, and her unsurpassed 
excellence in her household — a testimony delivered too 
in such beautiful language and form of thought, that it 
entirely overwhelmed her with a sense of her unworthi- 
ness as in a low tone of voice he said, " Farewell, fare- 
well." 

That heart of love flowed out to all, but his care for 
the future of his most devoted wife was peculiar. Each 
member of the household had a charge from him to 
minister in every way to her comfort and health and 
happiness, after he should be withdrawn from her. 



132 HIS LAST DAYS. 

He frequently expressed the belief that he should not 
know when he was about to make an exchange of 
worlds. He often arranged his bodily position such as 
he hoped it might be when the exchange came to be 
made. As the period of his departure approached, there 
was a change in his bodily condition, and he asked his 
wife, "What does this mean? I cannot long endure 
this." She replied, " 'Tis the release you have longed 
for so much." Turning then his head, so that he might 
look into her face, with his usual affection, he breathed 
but a few minutes, and passed gently, peacefully, to his 
everlasting rest. This event occurred on Friday morn- 
ing, about ten o'clock, June 22d, 1866. 



One of his clerical friends, (the Rev. Dr. Wilson,) with 
whom he had been particularly intimate, thus writes con- 
cerning him : — 

He retained the complete possession of his faculties 
to the very last ; was not only resigned, but happy, in 
the prospect of his change, and in the hope of a glori- 
ous immortality. His last days have been peculiarly 
full of instruction to all who were permitted to know 
of them, — his words, while perfectly cheerful, were 
most solemn and impressive ; and his own sense of the 
Divine goodness and favor, were such as have seldom 
been equalled, and probably never surpassed. Those 
who were privileged to be with him during the last days 
of his life, feel as though they had made a nearer ap- 
proach to a realization of the heavenly world than they 



HIS LAST DAYS. 133 

had ever before experienced, or had hoped to see in this 
life. 



Dr. Squier's pastor, the Rev. A. A. Wood, D. D., thus 
writes of him in the 1ST. Y. Evangelist of July 19th : 

Though the infirmities of years and labors were upon 
him, he engaged with his whole heart in the scenes of 
religious revival with which God has recently favored 
us. All seemed to feel that he was doing his last work 
for the Master whose Gospel he preached, and whose 
name he bore. There was a new fervor in his prayers, 
and a new earnestness in his appeals, as, tasking to the 
utmost his failing strength, he came daily, and often 
twice a day, to lead our devotions, and to speak of the 
things of God, — fervor and earnestness which gained 
new intensity from the thought that the time might 
shortly come when his voice would be silent among us. 
We cannot soon forget his impressive appeals to the un- 
repenting and delaying sinner to embrace at once an 
offered Saviour, and to the children of God to rise to 
the higher level of their duties and privileges, and give 
themselves with new zeal to carry out God's great pur- 
poses in behalf of our race. 

In the later spring his strength began to fail him. 
We missed him from the place of daily prayer, and it 
was soon found that, with no apparent disease, extreme 
physical weakness had confined him to his house, then 
to his room, and finally to his bed — the bed he was 
never to leave till he left the earth. But in all these 
days — though there were many and painful indications 
that the outward man was perishing — there were indi- 



134 HIS LAST DAYS. 

cations more marked that the inner man was renewed 
day by day. Never was his intellect more vigorous — 
never his view of God and the great plan of salvation 
clearer — never his interest in the triumphs of truth and 
the cause of religion deeper or stronger. None of 
those whose privilege it was to be with him in these 
last days can forget the peculiar calmness and serenity 
of that dying bed. Even while he lingered with us. 
his words seemed to be those of one not only ready to 
be offered, but of one to whom the scenes of earth and 
time had already become almost things of the past. 

There was once the prayer, so natural to a mind like 
his, which had ever loved to grapple with the profound- 
est themes, that God would give him light. And this 
prayer seemed to be wonderfully answered, as all clouds 
passed away, leaving him "with nothing further to 
pray for," as he said. " God is mine, Christ is mine, 
the Universe in mine." To him death had lost all its 
sting, the grave all its gloom, and peace, like a river, 
filled the soul. 

His friends in the ministry, who gathered around his 
bed. will ever have before them the pale countenance 
lighted up with unspeakable joy, while his words yet 
linger in the ear, "Work for Christ." A. A. W. 
Geneva, July 13, 1866. 



The following is a very concise and accurate account, 
taken also from the New York Evangelist, of the life- 
labors and of the last hours of Dr. Squier, from the pen of 
Rev. F. E. Cannon, D. D., a fellow resident of Geneva for 



HIS LAST DAYS. 135 

many years, as well as a fellow-laborer in a similar de- 
partment of Christian enterprise, and a member of the 
same congregation : — 

" He was widely known both in the ecclesiastical and 
the literary world, having written much for the religious 
papers and periodicals on profound metaphysical and 
theological subjects, besides two volumes already pub- 
lished, into which a great amount of strong argument 
and thought is condensed ; and we are informed that 
materials are left in manuscript, mostly prepared for the 
press, sufficient for two more volumes, which in due 
time will be given to the public. 

" Dr. Squier was the first pastor of the oldest church 
in the city of Buffalo, and was one of three ministers to 
constitute the Presbytery of Buffalo at its organization. 
His counsel and influence had much to do in planting 
and nurturing churches throughout all that district of 
Western New York. He was one of the founders of 
Auburn Theological Seminary, and did much to arrange 
its organization and course of study. He was the first 
agent of the Home Missionary Society, laboring as such 
through all the seventeen westerly counties of this State, 
founding and aiding feeble churches for seven years. 

" He was the originator, founder, and proprietor of 
the Geneva Lyceum for the education of young men. 
It was mainly through his influence that the Female 
Seminary of Geneva was established, which was for 
inany years so popular and prosperous under Mrs. Ricord 
and Miss Thurston. He assisted in founding and or- 
ganizing Beloit College, and from his own means en- 
dowed the chair of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy, 



136 HIS LAST DAYS. 

which he occupied with honor for a series of years. 
These are some of the monuments of his life and work 
in this world. He was the earnest friend of education, 
both literary and theological, and many who now occupy 
prominent posts, both in civil life and in the Gospel 
ministry, have reason to venerate and bless his memory. 

" For the last three or four years, his physical system 
showed signs of exhaustion, and gradually, without 
much positive suffering or disease, he sank into the 
arms of death. During all this time it was obvious to 
his friends that he was ripening for heaven, and as he 
approached the end, there was an unusual spiritual fer- 
vor and unction upon his heart and upon his lips. His 
soul fed upon the great doctrines of evangelical truth 
and the divine promises till his faith became full assur- 
ance. Without a doubt, or a fear, or a cloud, he looked 
into the broad future, which was all radiant and glowing 
before him, and longed to depart. It is scarcely possi- 
ble to conceive of a more sublime scene on earth than 
his death-bed presented the last few days of his life. 
With his mind clear and active to the last, and grasping 
wider and wider views as the end approached, he at 
length exclaimed, ' God is mine, the blessed Saviour is 
mine, the Comforter is mine, the promises are mine, 
heaven is mine, all things present and to come are 
mine. I have nothing to ask or pray for. Let me go !' 

" Thus passed away this loved and venerated father in 
Christ to higher and nobler work in the immediate 
presence of God. Stricken and bleeding hearts are left 
behind, but they bless God for so signal a triumph of 



« 



HIS LAST DAYS. 137 

grace, and cry, ' Even so, Father, for so it seemeth good 
in Thy sight.' This is not a starless crown." 

F. E. C. 

Geneva, July 13, 1866. 



LETTERS OF CONDOLENCE AND SYMPATHY. 

1. From Eev. Dr. Thos. S. Hastings, New York. 

2. " " Geo. W. Wood, D. D., New York. 

3. " " W. Clarke, D. D., Buffalo, N. Y. 

4. " " J. B. Condit, D. D., Auburn Theological 

Seminary. 

5. " " Samuel M. Hopkins, D. D. 

6. " " W. B. Sprague, D. D., Albany. 

7. " " G. W. Heacock, D. D., Buffalo, N. Y. 



From Rev. Tuos. S. Hastings, D. D., New York 
City:— 

Midnight, Monday, June 25, 1866. 

My Dear Aunt : — The tidings came to-day — uncle 
triumphant, and you calm, sustained, Christian : that 
compensates me for the trial of not seeing uncle again 
in the flesh. It is a real grief to me that I cannot be 
with you to-morrow, but all my friends said that it 
would be trifling with my health to go and return as in 
the circumstances I would be compelled to do. God 
willing, I shall see you ere long, and we can talk togeth- 
er of the goodness of the Lord, and of the glories of the 
land of Beulah. Meanwhile we shall think of you to- 
morrow as you bear the precious dust to the place of 
burial, — seed for the resurrection harvest. I know you 
do not need my sympathy, but I cannot help telling you 



138 HIS LAST DAYS. 

that my heart goes out to you, and rejoices in the mer- 
cies that sweeten the bitter cup, and in the calmness 
with which you taste its dregs. This event brings up 
years that had been hidden a long time in my memory : 
childhood, youth, the beginning of my manhood and 
my ministry: — uncle was associated with all these peri- 
ods of my life. It is hard to realize that I shall see and 
hear him no more. " Part of the host have crossed the 
flood and part are crossing now." " We are to the 
margin come." God grant that our last end may be 
like his who has just added another voice to the glori- 
ous song. Fanny sends much love. I am glad father 
and mother and cousin Kate are with you, — but more 
than all that the Comforter is with you. Love to all. 
Your affectionate nephew, 

Thos. S. Hastings. 



From Rev. Geo. W. Wood, D. D., New York:— 

At Home, July 4, 1866. 

Dear Aunt Squier : — I presume that you now have a 
more vivid realization of the separation and affliction 
involved in your bereavement than you had in its first 
hours. There is usually an excitement of feeling at first, 
which subsequently subsides ; and then the sense of 
desolation is greater than during the continuance of that 
excitement. When the daily round of duties is resumed, 
and friends and the world are occupied with their own 
affairs, leaving us more to ourselves, we miss the loved 
one, and our heart feels the anguish of its loss as not 
before. Such has been ever my own experience. 

I therefore more desire to talk with you now, than I 



HIS LAST DAYS. 139 

did when your grief was assuaged by the special influ- 
ences that affected it at first. I do not doubt that you 
have increasingly the consolation of that sympathy 
which so infinitely surpasses all that the dearest friends 
can feel. That will never fail you. The consolation of 
it will rise with every wave that may threaten to go 
over you. Your appreciation of your dear husband's 
gain, and thankfulness for his joy, will also increase 
from day to day. The prospect of re-union in the 
presence of Jesus must also become more and more de- 
lightful ; and you will have an unshaken confidence in 
the wisdom and goodness of the Lord's dealings with 
you, and a growing gratitude for the promises which 
are your portion. 

Still, after all, nature will feel the stroke which cuts 
to the centre of the heart. This must be in order to the 
spiritual benefit of the affliction. May grace abound to 
you, and deepen the work of sanctification even to its 
perfect accomplishment ! 

I was intensely interested in all the details sent to us 
of the dying experience. What an encouragement does 
it give to our wavering faith in looking forward to our 
own departure ! Such a triumph in death was a fitting- 
close to his life of faith. If the same sensible joy of 
victory should be withheld from us, we may yet be as- 
sured of the reality of victory. Why should we dread 
to die, when we see how sweet and blessed a thing it is 
to the believer in Jesus ? 

That intensity of love which he manifested in his last 
hours — what a revelation it gives of the character of the 
glorified ! What a blessed world heaven must be ! 



140 HIS LAST DAYS. 

Who would not wish to breathe its atmosphere of love ? 
And how plainly we see what is the type of feeling after 
which we should now aspire. Why cannot we have 
more of it here ? With such a Saviour, such an exam- 
ple, such a future to look forward to, surely we ought to 
be more apt in learning the lesson which it is the object 
of all discipline and all grace to teach us. 

I have not yet seen the religious papers of this week, 
but look for a notice of Dr. Squier's funeral, and his 
last hours, in one or more of them, from the pen of some 
one in Geneva, In due time, doubtless, a more extend- 
ed portraiture of him as a minister, teacher and writer, 
will be given. His influence is by no means to pass 
away with his mortal life. 

Yours affectionately, 

Geo. W. Wood. 



. From Rev. Walter Clares, D. D.: — 

Buffalo, June 23d, 1866. 
I am sorry, dear Mrs. Squier, that I am obliged to go 
at six o'clock Monday morning to Hudson, Ohio, to 
deliver an oration at their commencement, and from 
there to Detroit, to assist in the ordination of my son — 
and that these indispensable engagements forbid my be- 
ing with you, as I should otherwise be at the burial of 
our dear departed and honored friend. I was prepared 
to hear of his death by Dr. Wood's letter, the contents 
of which I communicated to my people. I shall to- 
morrow announce the event from my pulpit, and ask 
some of the people to go down to be with you on 
Tuesday. I hope they will go. 



HIS LAST DAYS. 141 

Your husband's memory will be precious to hundreds 
who knew and honored him. He always made upon 
me the impression of one who was full of God's good 
spirit, who loved Christ, loved His church, loved and 
enjoyed His truth, and was more alive on that than on 
any other side of his nature. 

Religion, I am sure, must have been not a profession 
only, but a habit and a life with him. 

You are alone, and yet not alone. You know too 
well whom you have believed, to fear desertion at this 
time of distress. Jesus will come nearer to you than 
ever. I fully believe that he takes away from us present 
blessings, simply to make room for larger, which he 
cannot longer withold from bestowing. How can we 
ever receive our inheritance except by losing the less 
and gaining the greater ? 

We shall pour out our thanks for Dr. Squier's memo- 
ry, and our prayers and sympathies for you in the house 
of God to-morrow. The peace of God which passeth 
all understanding keep your heart and mind through 
Jesus Christ. 

Yours, in affectionate sympathy and prayer, 

W. Clarke. 



From Rev. J. B. Condit, D. D.:— 

Auburn, June 26, 1866. 
Mrs. Squier — Dear Friend : — I cannot withhold 
these few words of sympathy in this time of your afflic- 
tion. I should have been present to-day in the last 
scene, showing my regard for your departed husband, if 
I had felt able to go. I returned yesterday from jour- 



142 HIS LAST DAYS. 

neying and preaching through a fortnight past, quite 
overdone. I did not give up going to Geneva this 
morning till nearly the last hour. I hope ere long to 
see you. Dr. Squier has been to me for many years an 
exemplification of the true ministerial character in prin- 
ciple and consistent example. I have admired the con- 
tinuance of his interest to the last in the welfare of the 
church and its institutions and in revivals of religion — 
though his age and infirmities might seem to justify his 
retirement. He has served his generation faithfully, and 
his works will live after time. 

Mrs. Condit joins with me in the expression of sym- 
pathy and remembrance in this day of trial. 
I am, yours truly, 

J. B. Condit. 



From Rev. S. M. Hopkins, D. D.:— 

Auburn, 29th June, 1866. 

My Dear Mrs. Squier : — When I left home a week 
ago ior a short visit to Ohio, the last intelligence we had 
respecting Dr. Squier was favorable ; and we hoped you 
were to have a respite at least from the great affliction 
which has come upon you. But we heard in Buffalo on 
Saturday of his death — some of the particulars, so full 
of comfort to you, and of deep interest to all his friends, 
I have only heard since returning home last night. I 
knew that death could have no terrors to one who had 
lived so long and habitually in an atmosphere of reli- 
gious thought and feeling ; but it was most interesting 
to hear of the beautiful clearness and serenity of his 
mind to the last, and the triumphant confidence with 



HIS LAST DAYS. 143 

which he committed himself to his Redeemer. I can 
not but take great satisfaction in thinking not only of his 
personal blessedness in the presence of his Saviour, but 
of the delight with which his active and inquiring mind 
will contemplate those profound questions in regard to 
the kingdom of God with which he loved to occupy him- 
self here. Your honored husband has left his impress 
deep on the history of our church. His record is a 
noble one ; and I am well assured that his name and in- 
fluence will be greater in coming times than they have 
been even during his life. I much regretted that my 
absence prevented my attending the funeral. May God 
bless and comfort you, is the prayer of your sincere and 
sympathizing friend, 

Sam'l M. Hopkins. 



From Rev. W. B. Sprague, D. D.:— 

Albany, July 20, 1866. 
My Dear Madam : — It is only within a day or two 
that I have heard of the death of your excellent husband,, 
and I do not know even now when or under what circum- 
stances it occurred. My acquaintance with him runs 
back to^a period perhaps more remote than you am aware 
of. My first knowledge of him was, I think, in the year 
1819, when I was returning from a short visit to Cana- 
da, after having accepted a call to settle as pastor of the 
church in West Springfield. As I was riding on horse- 
back through Dr. Squier's native place (I think it was 
New Haven) towards Middlebury, I saw a gentleman 
standing by the gate as I was passing a certain house on 
my left hand, and I stopped to ask him some question 



144 HIS LAST DAYS. 

designed to draw from him information concerning my 
journey. I very soon made the discovery that he was a 
minister, and though we were strangers when we met, 
we were scarcely so when we parted. I think my next 
meeting with him was at Buffalo in July, 1821, (1822,) 
a few days after I had taken my first great lesson in the 
school of bereavement. I well remember with how 
much kindness and sympathy he received me, and one 
consolatory remark that he made I have always treasured 
among my most cherished recollections. I had remarked 
to him that it was a source of trouble to me that I knew 
so little of the mode of the future existence ; that 
though I had no doubt of the happiness of departed 
saints, yet I wished to know more of the distinctive 
economy of that world to which they are admitted. 
His answer was substantially this : — " We see that God 
has so ordered things in this world that everything 
seems naturally adapted to our development and gratifi- 
cation — and as the same Being has ordained the econ- 
omy of the future world, why should we not expect that 
the same characteristic feature should pervade that, and 
in much higher perfection, as there will be the absence 
of all sin V The remark came as a balm to my wounded 
spirit, and it has never ceased to be a source of consola- 
tion to me. I trust it may minister somewhat to the 
calmness of your spirit, now that you are placed in the 
same circumstances that rendered it so grateful to me. 
But I am sure that you can not want for consolation in 
this time of deep sorrow. Not only are you privileged 
to reflect that your affliction, in all its circumstances, has 
been ordained by a Father's wisdom and love, but the 



HIS LAST DAYS. 145 

endearing relationship now dissolved has been continued 
through an uncommonly long period, and while you 
have no doubt that your husband is now a perfect per- 
son in Christ, rejoicing among the angels, you can not 
but think of the many monuments of useful activity 
which he has left wherever he has sojourned. And to 
crown all, you will not forget that it will be but a brief 
period before you may hope for a reunion under circum- 
stances infinitely more desirable than you have ever 
known upon earth. That you may enjoy the constant 
presence of the Comforter, is the prayer of your sincere 
friend, 

W. B. Sprague. 



From Rev. Dr. Heacock, Buffalo, 1ST. Y. : — 

Buffalo, Aug. 7, 1866. 

My Dear Mrs. Squier : — I was absent from home at 
the time of the death of your reverend husband, and 
learned nothing of the circumstances of his last illness 
till the return of our friends from Auburn, and the pub- 
lication of those obituary notices in the Evangelist. 
How gracious was God to him ! How little like death, 
in its ordinary circumstances, was such a departure! 
And yet such a departure as we might have anticipated 
God would give to His servant whose life He had 
blessed with so much of usefulness and worth. " The 
path of the just is as the shining light which shineth 
more and more unto the perfect day." 

If to know that the lives of our departed friend's 
were useful and honored in the world, and that their 
memories are cherished by the good ; if to have wit- 
10 



146 HIS LAST DAYS. 

nessed their memorably happy and Christian death — if 
these are consolations, you have them, my dear madam, 
in large and precious measure. Mourn not a worthy 
and godly life on earth now transfigured to the glori- 
ous and immortal life of Heaven. His death has awak- 
ened in many hearts tender and holy memories of for- 
mer years. 

My dear mother, who greatly loved and honored your 
husband, — under whose ministry she was brought to 
Christ, — remembers you in your bereavement with con- 
stant affection and sympathy, and cherishes most sacred 
recollections of the Christian counsels, labors and exam- 
ple of her early pastor. His death I believe is but add- 
ing a quickened tenderness to her own Christian expe- 
rience, drawing her nearer to God — nearer to Christ — 
nearer to that Heaven to which so many she has loved 
have already departed. 

I write in great haste, and under the pressure of a 
great amount of work, but could not deny myself the 
expression of the sympathy I feel for you, and the rev- 
erence which I bore to his life and character and mem- 
ory. Affectionately and truly yours, 

G. W. Heacock. 



PAET II. 



LECTURES, DISCOURSES, 

ESSAYS AND REVIEWS, 

BY MILES P. SQUIEB, D. D. 



I. 

TEN LECTURES 

ON EUROPEAN TOPICS. 



LECTURE I. 

GENEVA AND THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE. 

Rail Roads are not as numerous in Europe as in this 
country. France has but one, to the southeast of Paris, 
branching south to Lyons, Marseilles and the Mediter- 
ranean, and more easterly to the Savoy and Italy, or 
more easterly still, to Geneva and Switzerland. The 
branch to Italy, though determined on, may not be com- 
pleted for half a score of years, as a tunnel of from seven 
to ten miles, under the " St. Cennis" pass of the Alps, 
is yet to be made, before reaching Susa and the Valley 
of the Po. The last fifty miles of that to Geneva is 
through a quite mountainous region ; but as nature had 
encountered its difficulties by the waters of the Rhone 
forcing their way to the bosom of the midland sea, it 
was but fair that art should try her sway, and you bound 
along under impending cliffs, around projecting rocks, 
by vine-clad slopes, perforating hill after hill, till the 
Jura proper is run through ; in a tunnel of four or five 
miles, and emerging from it, you breathe more freely, 
as if inhaling the sweet atmosphere of Republican Swit- 
zerland. 



154 GENEVA AND THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE. 

Geneva is one of the most delightfully picturesque 
and beautiful cities in the world. The Jura range in 
full view encloses it on the west and north, as if to 
guard it from the incursion of barbaric hosts in that 
quarter, while the mountains of Savoy loom up near at 
hand on the south and east, with only here and there a 
fissure and loophole through which to look out upon the 
sterner and more commanding elevations of the ever- 
lasting Alps beyond them. 

In some of these depressions, and due east, is seen Mt. 
Blanc itself, the monarch of all, in solemn majesty, some 
sixty or seventy miles away, clad to his feet with a man- 
tle of white. You wonder, as you gaze upon it in its 
grandeur from the quay on the west of the lake and 
the town, that it need be so icy and cold quite down to 
your level almost, while the heat of dog-days is resting 
upon it, and you are sweltering in your summer suit. 
There it stands unimpressed and unimpressible. The 
snows of a thousand winters have settled upon it, heed- 
less of the changes elsewhere that spring and summer, 
seedtime and harvest have made. You must remem- 
ber that the rotundity of the earth makes some differ- 
ence, at that distance, and that after all, the altitude of 
the range and of its peaks is immensely great and would 
be appreciated by one standing at its base. 

The town of Geneva is well and compactly built, with 
villas, and fine country seats planted on all sides around 
it. The old wall of Medieval history is being picked in- 
to fragments and reconstructed into massive blocks of 
stores and dwellings ; a sure tribute to modern gunnery 
or modern civilization. Let us hope the last, though 



GENEVA AND THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE. 155 

the constant dread of the encroaching claims and as- 
tute diplomacy of Napoleon rather belies our hope. 

The single object of most prominence in Geneva is 
the church of " St. Pierre" where Calvin preached, and 
where the Alliance met. It is a massive and imposing 
pile, a stately composite structure of huge pillars and 
arches, and standing on a rising ground in the centre of 
the city ; is quite conspicuous from all parts of it. Cal- 
vin's pulpit rests against a pillar in one side of it, and 
though forbidden to enter it by a board on the stair- 
case, there we assembled with the " savants" of Chris- 
tian Europe, from day to day in adjudication of the 
great moral problems of the age and the future. The 
registered membership of the Alliance at this meeting 
was above eighteen hundred, and nearly fourteen hun- 
dred, exclusive of those from within the Canton itself, 
besides a large number more, who stopped on their 
travels in Europe, to behold so august and venerable an 
assembly, and catch the inspiration of its meetings. 
There were men of all climes and races. America, 
however inadequately represented, was pleasantly and 
honorably recognized; a hundred or more from the 
British Isles. Russia, India, and the cape of Good Hope, 
with a sprinkling of choice spirits from Italy, long dis- 
owned and dishonored, but now rising and regnant It- 
aly, while the great body of members was from the 
central States of Europe, France, Germany, Prussia and 
Switzerland, and a few from Austria. Many of the best 
scholars of the continent were there : men of rank and 
position, clergymen and laymen, authors, theologians 
and civilians, — men frOm every sphere of Christian 



156 GENEVA AND THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE. 

truth, conversant with the past, intent on the present, 
and forecasting the future; all engaged on tbe giant 
problems that had convened them. 

I will give you the words of M. Adrien Naville, Pres- 
ident of the French portion of the Alliance, and resident 
at Geneva, and who became President of the whole, in 
his opening address and note of welcome to the meet- 
ing in allusion to this country : — " Welcome, Brethren 
of America, who have quitted your distant homes at a 
solemn moment. Our thoughts carry us without ceas- 
ing to the sorrowful crisis, at which you have arrived. 
The United States are not forgotten in our prayers. Our 
firm confidence is that a country that has done so much 
for the cause of Christ, can only receive blessing in the 
end. What thanks will the Christians of Europe, as of 
America, render on the day when your noble country 
will be only, and everywhere, the land of freemen !" 

Two things deeply impressed me at the Alliance : the 
intense and continued interest with which the questions 
submitted were grappled with and discussed, and the 
deep meaning and eventual reach and comprehension of 
the questions themselves, in their bearing on the pro- 
gress of humanity and the cause of Christ. There they 
sat from day to day, with two, and sometimes three ses- 
sions a day, for ten days consecutively, the Sabbath on- 
ly intervening. No diminution of interest was observ- 
able on to the close. And it was not merely or mainly 
the current politics or diplomacies of the day that so 
engrossed them, but the deeper problems of truth which 
underlie the present and the future, and which yet are 
to upheave society and reconstruct the institutions and 



GENEVA AND THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE. 157 

destinies of men. The greatest weight on Europe and 
on intelligent and free mind there, is the Papacy, and 
the civil corporations that are interchangeably pledged 
to it and by it. Romanism rests like a pall on the as- 
pirations of free thought on the continent, and absorbs 
very much the attention of the wise and the good, and 
when Dr. Merle D' Aubigne proposed in the conference 
that the next meeting should be at Rome, it was like a 
clap of thunder, and filled the heavens with one univer- 
sal note of surprise, gratulation and joy. 

The infidelity of Germany, its causes and cure, the 
poorer classes in France, oppressed and uprising Italy, 
Christian aid to Turkey and the East, the duty of Eng- 
land to her colonies, the present crisis in America, the 
subject of revivals of religion and their progress and 
future, and the cause of Christ as connected with these 
and kindred topics, came in each for a share of atten- 
tion ; but the incubus, the oppressions, the night-mare 
of Romanism was by eminence the great absorbing 
theme. 

The beginning of the end cropped out at some points, 
perhaps, and Dr. Baird told them how we were getting 
on with the monster in this country in his apj)ointed 
reading on that subject, and resolving ourselves into 
a more intelligent Christianity and taking to some ex- 
tent the Catholic mind with us at this point ; but the la- 
bor of all minds was here, and the deep convictions of 
all centred on the truth and dominant fact that Rome 
and her dependencies are the great impediment to the 
world's progress, and must in Providence be removed 
out of the way. To aid them against the oppressions 



158 GENEVA AND THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE. 

of both church and State in Europe, a wishful and ex- 
pectant eye was turned to this country and our free in- 
stitutions of religion and government. 



AMERICAN MEETING. 159 



LECTURE II. 

EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE— AMERICAN MEETING. 

Another subject interested the Alliance, in intimate 
connection with that referred to in my last paper. It 
was the cause of freedom generally, — freedom of thought, 
of person and condition. It rises there in the desire for 
religious freedom, and has an intensity, of which we, in 
this country, can scarcely conceive. No slavery in form 
exists in the European States, and no one doubts the 
right of all to civil liberty. The tendencies in that di- 
rection are quite considerable on the continent, and they 
are getting stronger continually. But giant impedi- 
ments are yet in the way. A stereotyped papacy, with 
its ramifications everywhere almost, and its doctrine of 
infallibility and exclusiveness is the first in order, and 
next are the civil governments that are connected with 
and dependent on Romanism. This trammels the pub- 
lic mind and hood-winks the people, and is a unit in its 
influence on both sides of the Alps. It is in concerted 
league against religious liberty and free thought gener- 
ally, and holds largely in check the civil power. Napo- 
leon III. finds it too much for him as yet in his long- 
cherished plans for the liberation of Italy. He is " bi- 
ding his time," — waiting for " the pear to get ripe," and 
holding the more ardent and interested cabinet of Tu- 
rin at bay, till the best time shall arrive. Other wars 



160 AMERICAN MEETING. 

may come and other complications ensue, before the 
cause of freedom shall be successful in Europe. In the 
mean time it has ardent friends and advocates all 
through the masses, and among the more intelligent 
and evangelical of the higher orders of society. The 
scholars of the continent are intensely alive to this 
cause, and eager to catch the first note or sign of pro- 
gress in its behalf. 

Here was the key-note of interest at the Alliance, in 
respect to the American struggle. It was deemed a 
great anomaly that a system of organized slavery should 
yet linger on this continent and especially in the United 
States. The first question on every hand was, " What 
will be the effect of this war on slavery ?" " Is the 
North fighting in the cause of freedom f " Will the 
slaves be set free ?" The interest in the whole question 
of the war centered here. African slavery was not only 
deemed a dark feature, an unutterable repulsion in 
American institutions, but its giving up was deemed 
essential to the progress of humanity : — it was part of a 
whole in which all the world was interested. Hence 
the inquiry for the American meeting at the " Alliance," 
and the desire that those fresh from the scene of strife 
should enlighten them on the subject. The meeting 
was one of great interest. The Chevalier Guyot, who 
is a Frenchman by birth, but long a resident in America, 
and extensively and reputably known in both hemis- 
pheres from his works on physical geography and other- 
wise, was made chairman : the President of the Alliance 
general, sitting aside on the occasion. The meeting was 
constituted with prayer by the Hon. and Rev. Baptiste 



AMERICAN MEETING. 161 

Noel, of London. This was fervent and appropriate, 
being almost wholly in relation to America and the war, 
and deeply in sympathy with the views of the North. 
The chairman followed in an opening address, which, 
too, was patriotic and hopeful. To this succeeded an 
address by Dr. Baird, of New York, my companion in 
travel, on the influence of free institutions on Roman- 
ism, as shown in the progress of events in this country. 
The Doctor's method was happy and exhaustive of his 
subject. It showed America to be far in advance of 
Europe on the Roman question, and that we are past 
material danger from this source, while she is yet labor- 
ing in the heat of the conflict. 

A few moments were then given, by special request, 
to Dr. Merle D'Aubigne, who spoke with animation and 
hope for America, and for an issue to the struggle that 
should be favorable to the cause of humanity and free- 
dom My own name had been announced for the next 
address. I was somewhat a stranger on that side of the 
water and Dr. B. took occasion, on introducing me, to 
read my commission to the Alliance, from my Presby- 
tery and home, in Geneva, N. Y. As it was somewhat 
characteristic, and created quite a sensation in the As- 
sembly, I venture to copy it and to accept meekly the 
appreciative personalities it imports : — 

" Geneva in the New World, to Geneva in the Old 
World, sendeth greeting, and to the Evangelical Alli- 
ance meeting there : — 

" We are named for you and are situated by a lake 
like yours, and in the midst of a region rich and pros- 
11 



162 AMERICAN MEETING. 

perous, and of a people resolved, in God's name, to be 
intelligent and free. 

" Our brother, the Rev. Miles P. Squier, D. D., whom 
we send to you, is a member of the Presbytery of Ge- 
neva, here, and is the member whose name has longest 
been enrolled of any, on the books of the Presbytery, 
now among the living, he having been ordained to the 
work of the Gospel ministry, by this body, and installed 
Bishop of the first Presbyterian congregation of Buffalo, 
N. Y., in May, 1816. He has devoted himself much to 
the cause of education in the west, and is now Professor 
of Intellectual and Moral Science in Beloit College, in the 
State of Wisconsin. 

" Any attentions of Christian courtesy and kindness 
to him from the meeting, will be gratefully acknowl- 
edged and reciprocated, as among the tokens of that 
Divine fellowship which unites us in common bonds of 
love to Him and His cause who is the one common 
Lord of all." 

This paper was signed by most of the members of the 
Presbytery of Geneva and by the Pastor and Eldership 
of the congregation of Geneva, and was received with 
marked approbation by the Alliance. Judging that at 
least a modest word was demanded by me, I replied as 
follows : — 

"I thank you for the gratulations of the hour, -and 
shall bear home with me to the distant and broad land 
of the west grateful memories of ' Geneva' in the Old 
World, that though she is slender in physical dimen- 
sions and has colossal arms around her, she is large of 
heart, rich in historical associations, in intellect and 



AMERICAN MEETING. 163 

character, and in a high Christian civilization, and not 
unmindful of the stranger within her gates." 

To this succeeded my address on the American Ques- 
tion, which is published in the English volume of the 
proceedings of the Alliance, and in the New York Ob- 
server of December 19th, 1861, on this side of the 
water, and which is as follows, being limited to a ten 
minutes' speech, by the number to address the meeting 
and the necessity of but a single meeting for America : — 

ADDRESS. 

" African Slavery in the American States was to them 
the bequest of past generations. It was accepted in 
our country when the slave trade was everywhere held 
as a legitimate commerce, and was shared in by the 
ships of all Christendom. John Newton wrote his 
Cardiphonia mostly on the African coast, and when a 
dealer in slaves there ; and England, with her share of 
the carrying trade of the world, trafficked in slaves for 
forty years after our Declaration of Independence. All 
the original States of the American Union were once 
slave States ; now a majority of them are free States, 
and in becoming so, have pointed out the way for the 
remainder to follow, and suggested the only legitimate 
and becoming method in which the great problem of 
slavery in our country can be solved. That slavery was 
to be but temporary among us, and did conflict with 
the principles and policy and best interests of the 
American people, was the doctrine of the fathers and 
founders of the Republic ; — of Washington, Jefferson, 
Madison, as well as of Franklin and Adams, and others 
both North and South. Hence the word slave, or slav- 



164 AMERICAN MEETING. 

ery, is not found in the Constitution, and the subject is 
referred to only by circumlocution and in ambiguous 
phraseology, and in the hope that the whole subject 
matter involved would become obsolete and pass from 
the recollections of men. This doctrine and claim were 
imposed on us in our own Declaration of Independence, 
and are to this day conceded and adhered to at the 
North, and presented by it in all constitutional ways to 
the consideration and acceptance of the South. But in 
the South a new doctrine has sprung up. It is this : — 
that slavery, the subjection of a servile race by the dom- 
inant one of a country, is essential to the highest type 
of a Christian civilization, and should be perpetual. 

"The antagonism in our country is then becoming 
one of ideas as well as of supposed interests. In the 
meantime the North, with its free institutions and gen- 
eral intelligence and enterprise, is outgrowing the South 
in population and material resources, and can command 
its positions and policy at the ballot-box. The South, 
foreseeing this, have risen against it and inaugurated 
the war ; and Europe and the civilized world may know, 
as well first as last, that the effort to -perpetuate and 
nationalize African slavery on the American continent, 
lies at the foundation of all our present trouble ; — that 
while the old world is struggling for freedom — Italy 
becoming a nation, and the Czar liberating his serfs by 
millions, there is in America a new effort to clinch the 
chain of the slave, and to initiate and establish the insti- 
tutions of a country on the principle of the permanent 
subjection of a servile race. 

" The North is honest and increasingly united in its 



AMERICAN MEETING. 165 

adhesion to the doctrine of the founders of the Repub- 
lic, in this matter, and accepts a policy^ which all history 
shows to be essential to the best material, social and 
spiritual interests and progress of the whole land. 
Slavery is no more needful there than elsewhere, either 
at the South or North. Even now the best slave-work 
in the South is on the principle and is sought in the 
element of freedom. It is through stints and patches of 
work to the laborer, wherever this can be done, and his 
thus buying his time by extra and free exertion to be 
his own man, and work for himself, and do as he pleases, 
for the time that he gains. 

"And a volume of truth lies in this principle thus 
acted on. It is universal as humanity, and its instruc- 
tion, with the increasing light of the future, may, and 
must be taken, to every latitude and longitude on the 
globe. An opposite course is short-sighted and suicidal, 
and rests on a basis inherently false and ruinous. The 
world will be free. This is the ordinance of God and 
the inheritance of man. It is now too late to enslave a 
race, (to say nothing of the verdict of the past,) and to 
build up a government on the principle of the protection 
and perpetuity of human bondage. It is a move back- 
ward on the dial of time. Providence will blow upon 
it ; — 'the stars in their courses will fight against it.' 

" The South in this struggle have really no ground of 
complaint against their brethren of the Free States, 
either within the Constitution or outside of it. True, 
they voted in November last, as they had a right to. 
They have been somewhat reluctant to execute the 



166 AMERICAN MEETING. 

' Fugitive Slave Law' as impinging against a * higher 
law,' written on the conscience, and they have declined 
to nationalize slavery. And what less could they do in 
this noon of the nineteenth century of light and grace ? 
And yet the South may possibly gain in this war what 
she wants. But in that case she will inevitably gain, 
too, what she does not want. She will vacate the con- 
stitutional protection of the North, and. secure its con- 
firmed and open hostility against that cherished institu- 
tion, which lies at the foundation of the strife, and find 
a Canada on Mason and Dixon s line. She will gain, too> 
if we mistake not, the scorn of Europe and the civilized 
world. She will fan afresh the conviction of freedom, 
and the desire for it, in her own subject race, who will 
not be slow, from her example, to learn that the ' white 
man has no rights that the black man is bound to 
respect.' Humanity is everywhere instinct with the 
idea of freedom, fearless of consequences. And thus 
another alternative in the war may be that some incipient 
reverses may wake up the fanaticism of the North, and 
that she will come down like an avalanche on the South, 
with or without the Constitution, 'proclaiming liberty 
to the captives, and the opening of the prison doors to 
them that are bound,' and inevitably lighting the fires 
of servile insurrection, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. 
Fearful as this would be, it may not be forgotten that it 
is a liability in this war. Think of St. Domingo, and 
look out for unspeakable horrors if this shall be the 
issue. To fight the North may not be the sorest of 
troubles to the South. When the fighting is over and 
the chivalry expended, her people will find themselves 



AMERICAN MEETING. 167 

on the volcano still, which has always been so fearful in 
their view. They will only have gained the boon of 
providing alone against it, unassisted by their connection 
with the free States, and divested of their association 
with them, which has hitherto rendered their own posi- 
tion, as Slave States, respectable. They are by their 
own acknowledgement but a confederation of States. 
Local views or local troubles and aspirations, may divide 
them again and again, and how soon they will be like 
Mexico none can tell. Even now there is trouble in 
this direction, and Gov. Brown, of Georgia, has dis- 
banded troops, organized within his jurisdiction, by the 
Confederate government, as thereby interfering with his 
views of State sovereignty. Civil powers may feel 
obliged to regard only the de facto principle, but we ask 
the Christian world and Christian men to grasp the 
moral elements of this conflict, and give their suffrage 
and their prayers in behalf of the cause of freedom, 
humanity and the right. Look at the monster idea of 
now organizing a government in the Western hemis- 
phere, in the interest and for the sake of human slavery ! 
With it would inevitably come the foreign slave trade, 
and it will then cost England more to keep down that 
trade than to support all her own poor from a common 
treasury, until cotton will grow somewhere else than in 
the Gulf States. The establishment of such a power 
can but be an apple of discord — yea, a rock of offence 
to the nations. Better let all the Garibaldis of Europe 
come over than witness such a thing. Shall we have 
the slave trade in America, when all the world beside 
scorn the traffic % Is human flesh at a discount there % 



168 AMERICAN MEETING. 

Shall the slave trade be piracy anywhere else, and yet be 
a legitimate and honorable commerce 

In that land of the free 
And home of the brave? 

Shall the nations combine against it on the high seas, in 
Italy, in Hungary, in Poland, in Turkey even and Mex- 
ico, and yet tolerate and sustain it there ? Tell it not 
in Gath. 

" No ! this must not be ; and we can hardly doubt 
the eventual issue of the struggle now going on in that 
land. Providence demands that it be in the interest of 
humanity, of freedom and the cause of God ; that when 
sufficiently baptized in blood, we shall come forth from 
the ordeal a free and united people, and better than ever 
qualified to fulfill our mission of mercy in behalf of other 
peoples and nations of the world." 

The rendering of the Address was attended with un- 
expected marks of approbation on the part of the meet- 
ing, and at its close, Dr. Urwick, of Dublin, Ireland, in 
a speech sufficiently laudatory of the address, moved 
that it be printed forthwith under the auspices of the 
Alliance and circulated over the world. He was fol- 
lowed by others in the same strain, but at the sugges- 
tion of the American delegation themselves, it was 
thought best that this paper should follow the usual 
course with others, read before the body. 

The Rev. Mr. Kerr, of Rockford, 111., then read a pa- 
per on the " characteristics of North Western mind, in 
America and its attitude in relation to our present strug- 
gle." Brief addresses were also made by Rev. Mr. 
Morrison, late of India, and Dr. Sawtell of Havre in 



AMERICAN MEETING. 169 

France, and the meeting was closed by the Pastor Fisch, 
of Paris, with a very fervent and appropriate prayer 
for America and freedom, and the right and the success 
of all engaged therefor. 

But the English, led on° by Sir Calling Eardly and 
others, requested to hear more from America, and at 
their instance a second meeting was appointed for Mon- 
day following. At that meeting explanations were giv- 
en, and questions answered by the delegation, and pa- 
pers read by Rev. Mr. Priest, of New Jersey, and Rev. 
Baptiste Noel, of London, and a resolution submitted 
for the action of the Alliance in respect to America. 
This, with some enlargement, was adopted by the body 
in general meeting, and has been extensively published 
both in Europe and in this country. 

A special interest was thus thrown into the Ameri- 
can meeting, by introducing the rife question of the 
day, and it was conceded to be one of the most spirited 
and edifying which occurred in the course of the whole 
conference. Some of the American delegation before- 
hand doubted the wisdom of bringing out the question, 
but all acquiesced in this, in view of the cheerful and 
happy discussion of it and of the edifying result, to 
which by common consent we came. 

The American reprint of the address embraced in 
this paper, has made it the subject of some comment 
and criticism. But in behalf of the address as given, 
the following suggestions may be made : — 

1st. — Limit of time forbade expansion. It could con- 
tain but the seeds of things. It could but strike at 
some first principles of thought as connected with the 



170 AMERICAN MEETING. 

subject, and touch on some of those elements of truth 
and historic fact, that should indicate its nature and 
bearing. These were of necessity referred to in the 
fewest and briefest terms, and for the single purpose of 
showing where lay the great moral of the struggle now 
in progress between the North and the South of this 
land. 

2d. — The stand-point of the Address was not in 
America, but in Europe. It was at the centre of the 
Old World, not in the New, and at a confluence of na- 
tions, who looked on us from afar, and where subjects 
were discussed in " thesis.'" Underlying principles were 
wanted there — the germ, the root, the moral issue, the 
historic growth, and moral tendencies of the matter in 
hand, and without the many incidental and affiliated 
questions which attach to it in this country. And in 
stating these central elements and aspects of the subject, 
and in pointing to its probable, if not inevitable results, 
I am happy in seeing myself verified by all who have 
written upon it since. 

3d. — My object was to secure the sympathy and moral 
support of Christian Europe for us, and in behalf of the 
right in this strife. 

Europe was full of demagogues from the South, en- 
deavoring to prejudice the public mind against us. 
They had found their way into the columns of the lead- 
ing journals of France and England. The " Times," 
of London, and kindred papers there, were full of per- 
versions of the truth and vituperations of the North, 



AMERICAN MEETING. 171 

and "Galignani's Messenger," and other prints at Paris, 
but too faithfully and constantly copied their foulest 
aspersions and most malignant attacks. So considerable 
and disastrous was this influence, that our minister at 
Turin, Mr. Marsh, and also Mr. Dayton, our minister at 
Paris, often spoke of and deplored it, in our conversa- 
tions with them ; and they were quite urgent, that in 
visiting England, we should devote ourselves to a mis- 
sion of mercy, to endeavor to counteract these tenden- 
cies, and disabuse the minds of our great cousina there 
in this respect. This in other circumstances I would 
not have been slow to do. And it was in this state of 
things in Europe, and with the inquiry on eveiy hand — 
" Are these things so V' that I had the ears of its 
"savants" for a few brief moments, to listen to my 
story. I aimed at the " morale" of the subject. I would 
exert some influence on their minds in the right direc- 
tion. I would gain their Christian conscience and 
secure their benevolent aspirations and prayer to God in 
our behalf, and I could but rejoice in the cordial sym- 
pathy and hearty gratulations of the meeting, and in 
securing so entirely the expression of my views, in the 
paper of Christian kindness, condolence and affectionate 
recognition, and interest and call for prayer, which was 
sent out synchronously with our own national proclama- 
tion for fasting and prayer, and for the guidance and 
harmony of the Christian world in this thing. 

It was to me a glad hour. I rejoiced to see the pulse 
of the good and great men before me, so ready and 
strong in the right direction, and could but feel that the 
results of that hour, were worth the voyage of the At- 



172 AMERICAN MEETING. 

lantic, and all the perils of foreign travel, to one who 
had already entered on that seventieth year which is set 
down as man's utmost privilege of life on earth. 



Italy's regeneration. 173 



LECTURE III. 

THE SOURCE OP ITALY'S REGENERATION. 

The Alps separate Italy from the rest of Continental 
Europe. That must have been a mighty upheaval of 
nature which brought them forth, and pointed, with so 
much sharpness and hight and magnificence, that ocean 
of mountains, to the skies. 

Over these, from France, Geneva and the Danube, are 
several "passes," among which the Splugen, the Sim- 
plon and the St. Cenis are the most known. The last 
rises to an elevation of seven thousand feet above the 
neighboring sea, and to about the level of " eternal snow." 
At its utmost hight you pass out of France into Italy, 
and sink by one continued descent to the valley of the 
Po, at Suza, and strike one of the confluents of the 
main river. In this valley, and thirty miles away to the 
east and south, Turin is seated, the present capital of 
the new kingdom of Italy. This is the finest valley and 
river of the country, spreading wider and larger in their 
onward course at the southerly base of the Alps, to the 
Gulf of Venice, the Adriatic of the ancients. Here is 
that stately quadrilateral of fortified cities, held yet un- 
der the hated sway of Austria. Here is Alessandria and 
Solferino, and here, too, unquestionably, is to break out 
the next war in Europe, and commence the struggle 
that shall not enfranchise Italy only, and Hungary, but 



174 ITALY S REGENERATION. 

Poland also, it may be, and reduce to its proper dimen- 
sions as a German state the nationality of Austria and 
the Hapsburghs. 

Italy has been considered the basest of kingdoms. 
Haughty diplomats have gloried over it, as being mere- 
ly "a geographical expression." She has been the foot- 
ball of empires, the mere dice of kings. Governed by 
priestcraft, emanating from "infallible" Rome, she has 
been but the small change of the Pope, in lording it over 
the nations. She will be so no more. The future of 
Italy is most hopeful. All will not be done in a day, 
for centuries of nrisrule have left their impress on the 
people. Ages of superstition have crushed them. Ab- 
solutism in church and State has oppressed both body 
and soul, and well nigh taken the life of both. 

But those are genial skies. There is a deep liquid 
azure in them, and a poetic richness, as well as historic 
significance to every hill and valley, and woodland and 
stream, that have begotten a noble people, and which 
will help to make this the glory of all lands. Here sci- 
ence, learning and the arts have flourished. It is the 
land of poetry and song. Immortal Home is here. All 
is classic ground. "No education is complete without 
the study of its authors. It has had the moulding of 
mind ever since Cicero stood in the Senate or Virgil 
struck his lyre. In medieval periods, it embraced large- 
ly the research and erudition of Christendom, and its 
men of this day have shown themselves to be men of 
strength with the pen as well as the sword. Their State 
papers in that late ineffectual struggle for freedom, 
when the Pope fled to Gaeta, and the world began to 



Italy's regeneration. 175 

hope for them, were better than those of France in her 
greatest efforts to be free, and more fully challenged the 
sympathy and moral support of mankind. 

Cavour was one of the greatest statesmen in Europe. 
In most difficult circumstances, he brought up the king- 
dom of Victor Emanuel to an acknowledged rank 
among the first-class Powers of the Continent. Aus- 
tria, the Pope, the King of Naples, and the Dukes and 
Duchesses of Central Italy, were all against him. The 
Catholic question was in his way, and the temporalities 
of St. Peter. He needed great wisdom to secure the 
effectual though tardy support of Napoleon, and to 
check the impetuosity of Garibaldi. He took large 
views of Italian policy. His motto was " Festina lente." 
He knew that ages of degradation could not be repaired 
at once, or distinct nationalities be made to coalesce in- 
to one, by a word. He was smitten down in the midst 
of his career, a victim to his anxiety and overwork ; but 
he will long be hailed as the restorer of Italy, and his 
name go down to the future as one of the greatest of 
her sons. 

Cavour was succeeded by Ricasoli in the premiership 
of the Court of Turin. In some respects he is a better 
man for the post than his predecessor. If the one was 
a statesman, the other is more than that. If not de- 
cidedly a religious man, he counts much on the moral 
and religious element in securing the social, civil and 
political regeneration of his people. He may be by 
profession a Roman Catholic, but he is for free thought 
and general education. He is the patron of efforts to 
enlighten and evangelize the people, and would seek 



176 Italy's regeneration. 

their elevation and establishment as a nation, on the 
basis of intelligence and virtue. 

Victor Emanuel is eminently an out-door man. He 
familiarly speaks of himself as better fitted for a General 
than a King, and is more at home on the battle-field, 
than in the Cabinet, and with councils of State. He 
has a proud lineage of many centuries of the house of 
Savoy, and is deservedly popular as a soldier. With the 
exception of the popish faction yet lingering at Rome, 
his government is the desire of all Italy. His name is 
the rallying watchword of constitutional liberty, over 
the whole land and the isles adjacent. Industrial exhi- 
bitions are in progress under his patronage ; a higher 
degree of material and spiritual development is sought ; 
and by the consent and help of all evangelical Christian 
nations, Italy is fast rising to dignity, and strength, and 
honor, among the most intelligent of the peoples and 
powers of the world. 

There is a secret in this, well worth being told. The 
true servants of Christ in Italy, even from the middle 
ages, were persecuted by the Church of Rome. Fierce 
and long persecutions forced them into the fastnesses of 
the Piedmontese mountains, where they have for ages 
been known as the Waldenses and Albigenses of the 
Alps. There, in obscurity and comparative quiet, they 
studied their Bibles and preached the faith once given 
to the saints. They there breathed, to some extent, the 
air of freedom, — asserted the rights of conscience, and 
the claims and dignity of man. They were the Puritans 
of Italy. They learned to fear God, and nothing else. 
They got the principles of all law from the teachings of 



Italy's regeneration. 177 

the sacred text. The exigencies of their social state, 
and the airy hights of the mountains among which 
they clustered, taught them freedom. Like their com- 
peers of the Mayflower, they were worthy to concoct 
constitutions and to be the progenitor of nations. 

Charles Albert, the father of the present King, through 
some turn in the tide of civil affairs, was long seques- 
tered among the Waldenses, and received much of his 
education from them. He gave the first written civil 
constitution to his people, and was the father of constitu- 
tional freedom in modern Italy. How much he learned 
in those mountain solitudes we know not, but this we 
do know, that while he was unequal to the struggle" 
with the minions of Austria of his day, and while that 
embodiment of despotism brought its iron heel upon 
him and his country, his name has become the synonym 
of martyred liberty among all people. And now the 
day of retribution is arrived. Waldensian congrega- 
tions flourish at Turin, and at Florence, and elsewhere. 
Popery is on the wane, as the confederate relic of by- 
gone and worn out civil corporations ; whilst the reli- 
gion of the long-persecuted sons of the mountains ap- 
pears in new vigor to be the hope of Italy and her sal- 
vation. Christian laborers are at work in Milan, Genoa, 
Bologna, and at Rome also, and light is breaking in on 
every side. Our Ambassador at Turin, Mr. Marsh, said 
to me there, and as the result of much observation and 
a deep interest in the subject : — Italy is satisfying every 
reasonable hope, and is gaining in religious intelligence 
and culture as we ought to expect. With freedom of 
thought and expression, the ratio of intelligence will in- 
12 



178 Italy's regeneration. 

crease. The Bible is now largely circulated in many 
parts of the country, and the spirit of inquiry is fully 
awake. 

The oneness of the Government will facilitate pro- 
gress. Venetia will soon be returned to its rightful It- 
aly, and the city of the Doges, from her home on the 
waters, look down upon a regenerated country and call 
it hers. The capital will be removed to Rome, and 
Victor Emanuel be crowned from the steps of the Qui- 
rinal, and propound his constitution there. The honest 
and great-hearted Garibaldi has already demanded it ; 
and his life and prowess are its guaranty. The liberty 
and unification of Italy has long been his effort and 
watchword. This is by eminence, his life work, and 
God and the right sustain him in it. 

Under an enlightened, constitutional government, It- 
aly will soon become the glory of all lands. Her cen- 
tral situation, her maritime advantages, her mild skies 
and tropical fruits, her silk-worm and her grapevine, as 
well as her historic associations, her attractions to the 
man of letters and of leisure, to men of all arts and all 
aims, facilitate this. Let that goodly land but secure 
the indigenous home growth of an enlightened Chris- 
tian people, and all nations will delight to do it hom- 
age, and the long hight of the past be forgotten in the 
full splendors of an oncoming and glorious future. 



FRANCE AND ITS EMPEROR. 179 



LECTURE IV. 

FRANCE AND ITS EMPEROR. 

For the last fifty or seventy years France has been the 
greatest problem in Europe. Even to this day the states- 
men of England and the continent have not known what 
to think of her, and have stood in doubt alike of her pol- 
icy, and her word. From the time of "Le Grand Mon- 
arque," as Louis XIV was magnificently called, her dy- 
nasties have been crumbling and her political regime 
ever changing and self-inconsistent. Her government 
has well illustrated the doctrine in mechanics of the 
equilibrium and mutual reaction and repulsion of forces. 
She has run through all forms of civil administration, 
from the absolute rule of one, to the irresponsible rule 
of all, — from the despot to the Jacobin, and retraced 
her steps. She has been under martial law and mob 
law, alternately. She has oscillated between Robespierre 
and Gironde, — between the council of the Legislature 
and the council of three, — that of the dictator and the 
crown — regal and imperial sway — between the revival 
of old dynasties in the person of Louis Phillipe, and 
the short assumption of the democracy that followed 
him, till both elements were represented and swallowed 
up in the election of Napoleon III., as Emperor of the 
French and absolute Monarch of France. 

Under all changes the Nation has survived and in- 



180 FRANCE AND ITS EMPEROR. 

creased in resources and strength. Its real prosperity 
dates from the downfall of the " notables and great es- 
tates" of the realm. That was the uplifting of the peo- 
ple and the political regeneration of France. It was 
the creation of a "third estate," — the acknowledgment 
of popular rights and the claims of labor, on the atten- 
tion of the governing classes. Lamartine has said that 
the ideas generated in the French Revolution, were 
worth to Europe and the world, all the blood and treas- 
ure they cost. France would have learned faster with 
a better creed. She now occupies a central position 
among the nationalities of the continent, and has many 
advantages for a controlling influence over them. Her 
geographical position favors it. Her industrial resour- 
ces are large. She has many and broad rivers, and 
borders on both the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic. 
She has large and increasing cities, an improving agri- 
culture and commerce, and immense wealth in her man- 
ufactures. In every branch of productive industry she 
is now advancing with a rapidity which surpasses that 
of almost any other people. Her burdens are many, 
but then she has tried change until she is weary of it, 
and prefers security with a taut rein to privilege under 
a loose one. 

The government of France is largely despotic, yet in 
many respects enlightened and judicious. The will of 
the Emperor may have the force of law, but he does 
not despise the forms of law. His legislatures have 
measurable jurisdiction and adjudicate with open houses. 
The courts and diplomacy of France, her generals and 



FRANCE AND ITS EMPEROR. 181 

her armies, her police and her general thrift, place her 
in the front rank of nations. 

Napoleon III says that he understands his "epoch," 
and surely he has many advantages thus to do. He 
has known adversity, and felt the pressure of want. 
The oppressor's rod has been laid upon him. The dun- 
geons of Germany have taught him a lesson. His 
American tuition has not been lost upon him, and his 
elevation to the throne has been through an appeal to 
the masses. There is a popular element in his adminis- 
tration, which he does not forget. He was elected to 
his position by the vote of the people, and now glories 
in the title of "The Emperor of the French." 

Napoleon is a "parvenu" and this gives him advanta- 
ges for a discretionary and intelligent administration of 
the affairs of France. He is like his country in this. 
If she has broken up her ancestral relations, having 
swung from the moorings of her ancient monarchy, he 
has freedom to adopt the regime of a policy for the 
present times. He can have the adaptation of a new 
dynasty, and suit his reign to the people and the age 
in which he governs. He is not obliged to be bound 
by precedents. He can forego the claims of by-gone 
ages, and shape his course by the living exigencies of 
the people. He can go to war for an "idea," and stop 
at Solferino. His nobility are the men of his own crea- 
tion : his plans and precedents are the children of his 
own bosom, and spring from the resources of his own 
mind. 

Napoleon is eminently an original man. His habits 
of thought are of a philosophical cast. He examines 



182 FRANCE AND ITS EMPEROR. 

every subject in thesis, and takes its a priori possibilities 
and bearings. No one can study his utterances without 
the conviction of this. All his communications evince 
this, and exhibit a breadth and depth and condensation 
of thought, which but few possess. 

He has been accused of reticence and reserve. He 
has needed it all in the circumstances in which he has 
been placed. He is said to be cold and selfish. He 
certainly has shown himself capable of a stern en- 
counter with opposing and giant obstacles in his way, 
and under the conviction of a necessity for it, he has 
shown that he could be severe and relentless. 

Of his private life we have nothing to say ; his pub- 
lic acts have been eminently characterized for strength 
and wisdom. The world have ceased to call him "the 
nephew of his Uncle," and from the record he has al- 
ready given, we should be slow to deny that he may be 
the subject of high aims and generous impulses. The 
glory of France is doubtless his chief ambition, and he 
has the sense to know that enriching her, he enriches 
himself, and sends his own name with brighter lustre 
down to the future. He is to-day the greatest farmer 
in France, while he makes his influence felt through 
every street of the Metropolis. Paris is rising in new 
beauty under his hand. As it is eminently the heart of 
the empire, so is it the princess among European cities. 
London is larger, but has not its adornment and perfec- 
tion of beauty. She has not the costly and exquisite 
finish, — the gardens and the palaces, and triumphal 
arches, and walks and ways, — such magnificence of 



FRANCE AND ITS EMPEROR. 183 

statues and obelisks, and pillars, and fountains, and 
streets. 

Paris is greatly indebted to both the Bonapartes, and 
eminently to the one now on the throne. Nor does he 
confine his attention to Paris or France. Patriotism 
may be the measure of his aspirations, but we greatly 
mistake if he has not higher thoughts, and a nobler 
ambition. Napoleon says France is the only power in 
Europe that will go to war for an idea, and I give him 
credit for the assertion, and believe th#t with all his 
sternness and reserve, he intends to be the exponent of 
liberal principles and free thought, and the champion 
of human rights for the continent. Years ago he wrote 
a book for the freedom and unity of Italy. He after- 
wards precipitated his legions in deadly strife on Aus- 
tria, and did all that war could do to that end. He now 
holds the key of Rome till " the pear shall get ripe." 
Every day widens the breach between him and the Ro- 
man priesthood, as he sees it wedded to the past and a 
foe to progress. He is the friend of Italy and awaits 
her destinies, and that allies him to the downtrodden 
and oppressed of nations : to Hungary and Poland, and 
the reconstruction of European nationalities. His po- 
sition, his principles and his ambition invite him to this. 
He owes it to the memory of the 1st Napoleon, and the 
glory of his house, — to his American ideas, — to the ad- 
vanced civilization of France and her long preparation 
and baptism in blood to become the foremost of king- 
doms and a champion and leader in the cause of free- 
dom and humanity on the Continent. 

France has now had the tuition of near a century, 



184 FRANCE AND ITS EMPEROR. 

and the repeated baptism of blood. She significantly 
says, Paris is France, and France is Europe ; but to ful- 
fill her mission, if it be to enthrone the new doctrine of 
government and gain the social regeneration of the 
Continent, she needs two things : — The overthrow of the 
papal hierarchy and the attainment of religious faith. 

France has outgrown its religion. The intelligence 
of that country is in advance of its religious creed. 
Gewgaws may amuse children, but the puerile preten- 
sions of the Romish church cannot hold the French 
mind. It has been so since the days of Voltaire and 
Rousseau, and the best apology for Infidelity there is to 
be found in the category of the national faith. Ro- 
manism prostrates intellect and taxes credulity to the 
very verge of nonsense. The intelligent classes tire of 
it, for its insipidity and want of manly vigor and truth- 
fulness, and become sceptical. They hold to religious 
form only as a question of State. They attend church 
only on State occasions. Notre Dame has but a hun- 
dred or two of worshippers, on ordinary Sabbaths, and 
those mostly of the poor and dependent classes. Pro- 
testantism is now making some head-way against the 
current, but never was there a nation, professedly Chris- 
tian, so thoroughly Infidel as France is to-day. 

Two things besides the revival of general intelligence 
and the conviction of the utter unworthiness of Pope- 
ry as an economy of belief have contributed to this re- 
sult. I refer to the Ultra Montane as well as despotic ten- 
dencies and aspirations of Romanism. France dislikes 
a regime of worship that is dictated from beyond the 
Alps. She is restive under the ecclesiastical supremacy 



FRANCE AND ITS EMPEROR. 185 

and domination of Rome, and that all church prefer- 
ments and episcopal appointments must emanate from 
the Holy See. The political status of Italy hitherto 
has only quickened this sentiment and loosened the ob- 
ligations of religious faith. 

Here is the difficult position of the French Govern- 
ment at this moment. Napoleon could more easily con- 
quer the Austrians at Solferino, and institute a united 
Italy, than he can manage the tendencies of his own 
bishops and clergy toward Rome and the infallible 
Popedom, temporalities and all. 

He has set the press to work, and expects help from 
the court of Turin in this behalf, and thus with cautious 
helm and furled sail, is steering between loyalty to the 
Pope, on the one hand, and the sense of independence 
and freedom from foreign control among the people on 
the other. This dislodges the conviction of religious 
faith, and fosters the idea that all rites of worship are 
but an affair of State, and destitute of vital claims on 
the conscience. To this may be added the despotism 
of Popery. Its best friend is Austria, with its iron 
heel on all reform. It is known to be committed against 
free thought and free government, and the ally and ad- 
vocate of the divine right of kings. It is an absolutism 
and preaches the doctrine everywhere, and holds it with 
the grasp of death. But France is a democracy, or at 
least she thinks so, and has not forgotten the votes that 
gave her an Emperor. And she claims freedom of 
opinion and of speech so far as the State admits of it, 
and repudiates foreign domination not less in religion 
than in politics. The arbitrary dogmas of Rome have 



186 FRANCE AND ITS EMPEROR. 

little hold on her conscience, and are easily substituted 
by that want of faith which characterizes the French 
mind. Nowhere will you observe such an absence of 
religious ideas, — such an engrossment in the present, — 
such a living for this world. A future life seems not to 
be in their thoughts, and a sense of God and of obliga- 
tion to Him, to a large extent, is extinguished. 

Glory and France are their watchwords — to live and 
enjoy themselves their only concern. Gay, pleasure- 
seeking, and unreflective, they seem to sin with the 
least conscience of any people — their morality, a con- 
ventional arrangement for mutual good — a sentiment 
rather than a conviction, spontaneous, and at will, but 
connected with no ideas of God or of obligation to Him. 

The learned and philosophical Guizot, after visiting 
England and observing the operation of free institutions 
and a constitutional government there, remarked of his 
own country — " France needs religious faith." This tes- 
timony is true, and competent to the point. And it 
describes the imperative necessity of the French people. 
Romanism has engendered in their mind a scepticism in 
respect to all religious belief. They are wanting in the 
observance of the first truths of reason concerning God, 
and His providence and His word. They are without 
God and the practical conviction of amenability to Him, 
Without the recognition and fear of God, they lack that 
conscience which these convictions inspire. The stable 
foundations of morality are wanting. They lack the 
sterling Puritan element in their social life. From the 
peasant to the throne, France needs to be pervaded with 
genuine religious convictions, — with thoughts of God 



FRANCE AND ITS EMPEROR. 187 

and immortality, and the binding obligations of virtue. 
In one word, she wants a religious conscience. She 
must have an intelligent economy of doctrine, and a 
real conviction of it, and trust in it. It must be equal 
to her science and civilization, and sanctify both. She 
must give up the puerilities of Popery for a purer, better 
faith ; a faith that does not abjure reason and is not un- 
worthy of it. She must get back from the false lights 
of a merely legendary service to a simple Gospel, and 
its intuitive and legitimate teachings. She must have 
piety toward God, and faith in Jesus Christ, and a sim- 
ple and pure worship, and be strengthened to all righ- 
teousness by the baptism of religious truth. On this 
career France has already entered. She has long been 
praying for the forfeiture of her persecution of the 
Hugenots, and is returning with some confidence and 
hope, to the faith which she once destroyed. Protestant 
congregations, devoted advocates for the truth, are to be 
found in all her principalities, and, to some extent, in 
many rural districts. There is, at least, the first dawning 
of a brighter day. Romanism is on the wane. Napo- 
leon is as conscious of its inadequacy for the present and 
the future of France and Italy, as any one. He is wait- 
ing the logic of events. The work of Father Passaglia, 
the first scholar in Rome, opposing the temporal juris- 
diction of the Pope, and republished at Florence, 
and followed up with subsequent articles in the same 
strain, is a very healthful and gratifying token. And 
but to-day the news arrives that the inhabitants of 
the last named city are placarding through their streets 
and public places the motto, " Rome as the Capital 



188 FRANCE AND ITS EMPEROR. 

of Italy" — " Down with the Pope King" — " Long live 
Victor Emanuel." 

This is but the beginning of the end. The most in- 
timate relations subsist between Italy and France, and 
between the governments of the two nations. If the 
one has^ now her constitution from the foot of the Alps, 
and in near sympathy with the sturdy ethics of the 
Waldenses and the Bible, she knows how to learn the 
lesson, and if Napoleon III " can go to war for an idea," 
and conquer Italy for the Italians, his people may yet, 
with his consent, assert the rights of conscience against 
the claims of Rome, and get a religious faith, that shall 
make them equal to the claims of the future on so chiv- 
alrous and gallant a people. 

The expedition to Mexico and this continent is not 
yet written out. It is, we observe, thoroughly canvassed 
in the French Chambers, and is subjected to a scathing 
criticism and rebuke in the columns of the " Westmin- 
ster Review." Napoleon himself asserts it to be one of 
the noblest and best movements of his life, and expects 
the gratitude of mankind for it. We fear in it the in- 
trigue of that bigoted, Spanish, Roman Catholic wife of 
his, and apprehend that French conquests in Mexico 
will only serve to reinstate in power the Roman priest- 
hood of that country, with their overbearing resources 
of wealth and influence, to perpetuate the ignorance and 
degradation of the people. 

An enlightened monarchy in Mexico, while it would 
be certainly against our Monroe doctrine, might not be 
the worst thing for that country. It has fared hard and 
been badly governed hitherto, and if some sturdy Na- 



FRANCE AND ITS EMPEROR. 189 

poleon has leisure to consolidate it under law, and bring 
out its resources for the benefit of the world, we should 
not much complain. Maxamilian seems ready to under- 
take the task, and with France to sustain him, will un- 
doubtedly do the best he can to make monarchy accept- 
able on this continent. 

In the meantime Mr. Seward will keep all crowned 
heads well advised of our views, but there need be no 
clash at arms. Honest Lincoln must undoubtedly be 
President next time. Pennsylvania, California and 
Kansas have already declared for him. But he will 
have enough to do to get into subsidence and reconcile- 
ment the jarring elements of our home country during 
the balance of his eight years term without giving much 
thought to abstract questions outside. Mexico, as yet, 
has shown itself incompetent to free institutions and 
been but the disgrace of republics. Napoleon, if he 
understands his epoch, will not quarrel with us. Him- 
self a child of reform and revolution, as in the North 
of Africa, so he may do Mexico good, and pending the 
issue and cognizant of our own national struggle and 
crisis that is on us, we will commit our way to the Lord 
and trust the future to him. 



190 ENGLAND AND ITS QUEEN. 



LECTURE V. 

ENGLAND AND ITS QUEEN. 

England is approached from France by several routes : 
that by Havre to Southampton, — from Dieppe to New 
Haven, and from Calais to Dover, and thence by rail 
road or on the Thames, a river of quite considerable 
dimensions, and teeming with ships and commerce, all 
the way to the metropolis. 

London is an empire of itself. Its population is well 
nigh that of the whole State of New York. The city 
spreads itself out on both sides of the river, and chiefly 
on the north-west of it, with a radius of four or six 
miles every way from a point near to St. Paul's or Char- 
ring Cross as its centre. Parliament House, Westmin- 
ster Abbey, St. Paul's, the Bank, and Palaceg and 
Towers and Parks and business are on that side,' though 
the new and gorgeous Crystal Palace peers away off at 
Sydenham on the other side. 

London is a congeries of villages and boroughs, and 
separate municipalities, expanded into one large and 
overtowering city, in the course of time and events. Its 
streets are without much regularity or reference to each 
other. It is said to have twenty Queen streets and 
twenty-five King streets, and others in perhaps equal 
profusion. A post-office address must do more than 
designate its street — it must show which of that name, 



ENGLAND AND ITS QUEEN. 191 

by reference to some well-known locality as the Strand 
— the Mall — Fleet street — Flood Gate — or by marking 
the geographical portion of the city intended. 

A practice is observable in London, somewhat char- 
acteristic : the river is made an omnibus and a rail road, 
and innumerable small steamers are at work up and 
down the stream, conveying passengers to all points 
near it, at two or three pennies a head. 

London is eminently a business city. Not that of the 
government only, and of the British Isles, but of India, 
and the colonies around the world. It is the centre of 
the commerce of all nations, and keeps the books and 
regulates the exchanges of the world. The account is 
kept there, wealth accumulates there, and is diffused 
thence, as from a common and acknowledged centre. 

Liverpool, over on the western side of England and 
near the Atlantic, is a younger city, though rapidly 
growing in business and wealth, and from the advan- 
tages of its position may yet become the great commer- 
cial emporium of the kingdom. 

England has large resources in her agriculture, her 
mines and collieries, and yet her wealth and greatness 
must be attributed to her large share of the commerce 
of the world, in connection with her immense manufac- 
tures. She shows no signs of decay, and those who 
predict her speedy downfall from taxes or the weight of 
empire, must look elsewhere for it than to the statistics 
of her tunnage and commerce or the spirit of her people. 

The English are an intelligent, if not a literary peo- 
ple. Besides numerous respectable institutions more in 
the DissentiDg interest, the two Universities of the 



192 ENGLAND AND ITS QUEEN. 

Establishment, — the one at Oxford and the other at 
Cambridge, — would be an honor to any country. They 
started from small beginnings and have grown to truly 
colossal proportions. They had their rise in the cluster- 
ing of independent Grammar Schools in an early day, 
under the care of single teachers. They are the children 
of their own pupils, and have been built up from age to 
age on their successive endowments. They are now 
nearly of the same size. The University of Oxford, 
which is the oldest, dates back to the seventh or eighth 
centuiy of our era. It has now twenty-three separate 
colleges and foundations, with corporations really inde- 
pendent of each other, but for mutual edification and 
convenience, sharing in these last days some things in 
common. They are located apparently without reference 
to each other in all parts of the town. Indeed it is a 
city of colleges, and for their sake. They have numer- 
ous quadrangles of masonry of every age and style, 
with spacious yards and lawns and walks and overhang- 
ing trees. Addison's walk in Magdalen College is over 
half a mile around, and the great walk in the rear of 
Christ College, (or Church, as it is called,) and belong- 
ing to it, is four rods wide and one hundred in extent, 
with a dense row of venerable elms, from three to four 
feet in diameter, in each border. Large parks, with 
stately forest trees, and live deer sporting in them, are 
observable in the rear of some of the colleges. The 
University is the largest land and property holder in the 
region, if not in all England. Some of the foundations 
are richer than others, but all in their appointments, 
their Libraries and Galleries of Art, have the appearance 



ENGLAND AND ITS QUEEN. 193 

of thrift and comfort, and of the means of great and 
permanent usefulness. 

But at this point there is disappointment or occasion 
for it. Oxford is not doing the good she might. She 
suffers under the evils incident to overgrown and 
wealthy corporations. The University is very much a 
magnificent charity in the behoof of dependents and 
wards and cousins. The twenty-three colleges have, in 
all, less than sixteen hundred students, and some, with 
millions of money, not more than than thirty or forty. 
They have accommodations for five times the number, 
and professors and fellows rusting out for want of schol- 
ars. The terms of admission are a damage to them and 
the aristocratic notions that prevail. 

Still the stranger cannot visit those retreats of learn- 
ing, traverse those halls and gardens and grounds, and 
look through those extended alcoves of the wit and 
wisdom of the past, without seeing the elements of a 
mighty power for good in the future. There is yet 
truth and faith in Oxford and Cambridge. There are 
the forms, recumbent and sleeping it may be, of a 
mighty orthodoxy. The mind of the Spirit may breathe 
over them. The Holy Ghost may be shed down upon 
them from on high, and these centres and foundations 
be moved as one man. These halls, and these founda- 
tions, and magnificent charities it may be, are held in 
check, till all is ready and the pentecost is fully come. 
There is a future for England and the Saxon race " in 
the ages to come." She has colonies and dependent 
possessions round the globe, and the means of usefulness 
beyond any other nation. She has Gibralter and the 
13 



194 ENGLAND AND ITS QUEEN. 

Cape of Good Hope, and owns more on each of the con- 
tinents, than any other people, with the exception of 
Russia about the pole, and perhaps our own country 
here. She has an empire in India on both sides of the 
Ganges, and a decided ascendency in the Eastern Arch- 
ipelago. Australia is her's, and she holds the keys of 
China. The subjugation and occupation of that vast 
empire by a Christian power,- is tmly a question of time. 
A peaceful possession of its sea-ports /nay be gained by 
the methods of commerce, and this would lead to the 
establishment of inland factories and depots of trade, 
followed up by efforts for Christian enlightenment and 
evangelization, and thus a gradual transformation be 
secured from a heathen to a Christian people. It may 
be a better sample of the advance of Christian civiliza- 
tion than India has presented, though the general pro- 
cess of it has long been going on, with much imperfec- 
tion there. 

But India is fast improving now. A government is a 
better civilizer than a company. Since the crown has 
accepted the government of that country from the East 
India Company, the ratio of advancement there in the 
direction of an intelligent and prosperous Christian 
nation, eventually, is itself materially advancing. 

China is in some respects a more enlightened and 
better conditioned people than India, and less under 
the sway of malignant and unyielding superstitions. 
Her products invite the commerce of all nations, and 
her access to it is as life from the dead, to nearly a third 
of the human race. Providence will demand such a 
country, so vast in extent and favorable in position, in 



ENGLAND AND ITS QUEEN. 195 

climate and soil, as a factor in the future of humanity, 
and the way of the East seems already to be " cast up.'.' 

Should there be a struggle for the occupation of China, 
it would doubtless lie between England and Russia. 
This latter power has now all north of China and all 
east to Behring's Straits, except Japan, a^id no inconsid- 
erable section adjoining it, on our own continent. She 
owns both sides of the Amoor river, and untold regions 
up to its sources in the many confluents that swell its 
majestic bosom and proportions. 

What increase of territory Russia may have it in her 
heart to desire, it may not be easy to say. One thing is 
obvious : she has much yet to do for what she already 
has. She owns nearly all the north of Europe and Asia, 
from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and the Caspian and 
the Himmaleh Mountains, to the Avail of China and the 
Pacific Ocean. Serfdom is not yet extinct in her do- 
minions. Her agriculture, her manufactures, and her 
commerce, need centuries of improvement. Her newly 
acquired possessions on the Amoor, the very Amazon o± 
the Old World, have the size of an empire, and would 
be more benefitted by the arts of trade than by the 
clash of arms. 

England and Russia seem to be the meet counter- 
parts of each other. After some experience in the 
Crimea, they may see that there is a better way than 
war. They may become too intelligent and considerate 
to fight for China, and conclude to use and enjoy and 
improve it for the benefit of both, and submit its future 
destinies to the mutual comity and good will of all nations. 
This would assuredly be the more excellent way; and 



196 ENGLAND AND ITS QUEEN. 

can it not be anticipated that the policy of nations will 
increase in spirituality and in their relations to each 
other, and in the march of their internal and mutual im- 
provement be more commensurate with the demands of 
Providence and the instructions of revealed truth? 

This is the suggestion of enlightened reason and hu- 
mane jurisprudence on the subject, and the nations will 
at length accept it. Each sovereignty is best condi- 
tioned and prospers most, by having all others prosper 
around it. The Cosmopolite idea is a Christian idea. 
There is the brotherhood of nations — man is one, and 
has one Father in Heaven. 

England is best situated to have the oversight of 
China, for the good of the world. She is small at home 
and large on the seas and in foreign commerce. She 
has dependencies almost everywhere. She is, at home, 
a highly civilized and Christian people. Her literature 
and her faith are the birth-right of all nations. The 
Saxon race has in it a prodigious vitality, and is des- 
tined to be a great factor in working out the future 
problems of society and the world. The Sclavonic 
race is not equal to it, and though we concede much to 
Russia, as a great power among " the powers that be" 
on earth, and though her diplomats manifest much 
shrewdness and capacity in the Congress of Nations, 
and though we admire the progress in civilization which 
she is making, we look to Western Europe, and its cor- 
relates in America, for those life-currents which shall set 
forth for the evangelization of man, and shall bring in, 
under God, the day of prophecy and of promise in His 
word. 



ENGLAND AND ITS QUEEN. 197 

There is a lesson in this direction in the Royal Fam- 
ily of England, as represented in the present Queen. 
She, though not distinguished for grace of person or 
point and strength of intellect, is a truly Christian 
woman — a Godly, pious mother, and with the Prince 
consort, now deceased, constituted the united head of a 
model household. They were a loving and virtuous 
couple, and formed a distinguished example of that 
good Christian home, known only to England and its 
correlates. It is said that no other j^ople know what 
the word means. It was gained for them and us in a 
Magna Charta and at Kunnymede. 

Private virtue is wont to be a desideratum among 
crowned heads. The courts and palaces of Europe are 
noted for courtezan manners and low moralities. They 
have peculiar temptations and great incentives to disso- 
lute habits and profligacy of life. But it is an honor 
and blessing to England to be able to present such an 
example of sobriety, virtue and piety, to the nations, as 
she does in the person and domestic relations of her 
Queen. They have hallowed the throne on which she 
sits, and the crown she wears. They have added re- 
spectability to the court, and its attendants. They do 
honor to religion in the eyes of the people, and are a tes- 
timony to them of the sacredness and value of a truly 
Christian home. Such an example reflects light abroad. 
The thrones of the continent feel its influence, and are 
assisted to respect the source whence it emanates, if not 
to imitate its example. It is the gospel of God in the 
palace of the Caesars. It shows that personal religion, 
and personal fealty to it, and respect for it, may be in 



198 ENGLAND AND ITS QUEEN. 

high places as well as low, and that the social virtues 
may be held in honor, and should not be at a discount 
there. And it is an example and a lesson worth record- 
ing. Other thrones and monarchies have had pious 
sovereigns, and other nations pious rulers to leave the 
savor of their names in history ; but this is one of 
great distinction on the scroll of the present time, to 
shed the light of its high example on the homes and 
hearthstones of the British people not only, through all 
the colonies of England which belt the globe, but all 
nations and peoples also. There is value in a Christian 
home. The family antedated the fall. It is an institu- 
tion that came down from Paradise, and as it is the ear- 
liest, so should it be the most valued of any among 
men. It is the parent of the State, the exemplar of the 
church, and in its bosom are nurtured all those virtues 
which adorn society and assimilate earth to Heaven. 

The hope of the future is in this relation. The fami- 
ly constitution has in it the germ of the millenium. It 
is through Christian households that Christ will rise to 
tl^e sovereignty of all nations. Woman has a work to 
do in the house of God. Without her influence, the 
latter day of Zion's glory would never come, or a point 
be reached in Christian civilization that would render it 
possible. The elevation, excellence and power of wo- 
man, and a generation trained by her hand " who shall 
be all righteous," are the great boon of the future. Let 
these elements pervade and permeate the thrones and 
democracies among men, and let " kings become nursing 
fathers and their queens nursing mothers to Zion," and 
the families of the earth take on the mode of the Gospel 



ENGLAND AND ITS QUEEN. 199 

and own its sway, and the end would come as predicted, 
and this world would put on the type of the heavenly. — 
" Joy and praise would be heard therein, thanksgiving 
and the voice of melody." 



200 REV. DR. PUSEY AT OXFORD. 



LECTURE VI. 

REV. DR. PUSEY AT OXFORD. 

While in England I spent a Sabbath at Oxford, that 
city of colleges and literary foundations and ecclesiastics. 
It was "convocation day" when the twenty-three really 
separate corporations, having been gathered on the Sat- 
urday before, from their long summer vacation, and hav- 
ing met for morning prayer in then* respective chapels, 
assembled as to the heads of departments, and as mani- 
as could, in St. Mary's church, for a sermon. Dr. Pusey, 
a Fellow of Christ College, and ex-Regius Professor of 
Hebrew, — who had been cashiered for his Popish ten- 
dencies, but for some reason had got into favor again, — 
was the preacher on the occasion. He is a man ap- 
proaching the evening of life, of medium height, thick- 
set, a firm tone of voice, and not much action in the 
pulpit. But I recur to my notes for the day : — 

"Listened this morning (Sabbath, Oct. 13th) with all 
Oxford, &c, to a sermon from the celebrated Dr. Pusey, 
the father of Puseyism, and widely known on both 
sides of the water. As I was an American clergyman, 
I was admitted among the gownsmen, and to a good 
privilege of hearing, and was much interested in the 
discourse, which was an horn* long, and unattended wi:h 
the usual service of prayer, in public worship. It wis 
quite a labored and able production : ''And 1, if I be liffrd 



REV. DR. PUSEY AT OXFORD. 201 

up, zvill draw all men unto me? If the Regius Professor 
had been as good a metaphysician as Hebrew scholar, 
he would have improved the sermon. It was all on 
Reason and the Bible, (my subject, you will say,) and it 
was above half right. Dr. P. was running the parallel- 
isms and contrasts between Reason and Revelation all 
the way through, and seemed much like the man in the 
gospel, who saw 'men as trees walking.' He lacked 
analysis, and a careful and consistent use of terms, and 
committed himself and crossed his own track at various 
points. He is clearly a disciple of the Hamilton and 
Mansell school. But the sermon, even with these de- 
fects, had much truth and excellency in it, and was vast- 
ly more evangelical and faithful in its cast and exhorta- 
tions than I was prepared to expect. Its chief aim was 
to set up faith as the method of receiving Divine Reve- 
lation; and its chief mistake was in accounting those 
intuitions of reason and of the intelligence as faith itself 
which are the cause of it, and its legitimate ground, and 
thus, instead of making faith reasonable and a dictate of 
reason, in reality stultifying both, and giving up the co- 
incidence and harmony between them. Verily, there 
are some things the English have not got yet. They 
lack precision and ripeness in the science of mind. Oh, 
thought I, as I saw him (Dr. P.) battling along so lusti- 
ly on the edge of truth, and crossing and needing it, 
withom stating it in just relations, — why does he not 
see it and catch its line of things and use it, and thus 
render his work so much more easy and effectual, and 
give himself so much wider a margin of privilege to 
scathe Neologists and the advocates of 'positive science,' 



202 REV. DR. PUSEY AT OXFORD. 

which was his real and legitimate object. I have not 
seen so much Scripture interwoven in a sermon, and so 
well put, scarcely in my life. I think I must recur to 
him again, if I live to get home" — and so I do; but 
only for the following concise reflections : 

1st. — The preacher had an earnest and important subject 
before him. It was to present Revelation to us on an in- 
dependent basis, as the communication of the personal 
and perfect Jehovah, and not a mere deduction of " Ne- 
ology" or "positive science"; — that the information 
communicated in the Bible, and its economy of doc- 
trine, truth, and thought, are no result of mere human 
theories, or conclusion from the perfection or improve- 
ments of science ; but a body of divine intelligence to 
us, in our darkness and our need. In a word, that the 
Bible is a revelation of God to us, and not a growth 
from us, and that no perfection of science would have 
attained to it, — no deduction of philosophy bring it, — 
that it came direct from the bosom of God, and not 
through the researches of men, and is to be apprehend- 
ed and accepted as from Him, on the testimony and ev- 
idence which it furnishes, and is to be trusted in as such. 
This surely is a legitimate design : no one need to find 
fault with it. It places the Bible on a pedestal of its 
own, wholly aside from and above all systems of mere 
human device, — the product of divine wisdom and good- 
ness, and not of the intellect and skill of man. Kence 
the competency and authority of the Bible, as a divine 
manifestation, and forever removed above the level of 
all merely human systems of religious faith. 

2d. — Dr. P. set in needless contrast and antagonism Eea- 



REV. DR. PUSEY AT OXFORD. 203 

son and Revelation. This was indeed the prominent 
characteristic and vice of the sermon. It mistook the 
perverse reasonings of men, benighted and besotted, for 
reason itself and the effort to attain it. It forgot that 
Revelation comes from the reason of God, and is a mes- 
sage of his intelligence to ours ; and that from the very 
terms of the communication, we are expected to appre- 
hend and appreciate it. It is from reason, to reason, — 
from the intelligence of God, to the intelligence of man. 
But for this there would be no relevancy in it. As well 
speak to brutes or trees, if there can be no intelligent 
response to the utterance you make. Indeed, without 
this there could be no revelation. It must be made to 
the principles of truth inherent in the mind, and be ta- 
ken up by the reason and conscience in order to be of 
any use : it must be a revelation. I must see what it is, 
and that it is true, or I cannot believe it. My faith must 
have a reasonable ground, or it is no faith. It must 
found in my convictions, or it will not hold on me. The 
communication must be made to my intelligence, and 
give the reason for my crediting it. It is a truth, or it 
cannot be communicated. It is of the reason of God or 
it could not be. It is an apprehensible truth, or I could 
not receive it, or be responsible for it. I may not know 
all the relations of it, but I must know what it is, and 
that it is true, and have a reasonable conviction of its 
truth, or I cannot put my trust in it. My faith must 
follow my convictions. I may not know all the reasons 
for a given truth, but it is revealed to me for my appre- 
ciation and confidence, and I will go on to know more 
and more of it. God gives me life and strength. He 



204 EEV. DR. PUSEY AT OXFORD. 

is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. Christ is the 
light of the world, and has said that his people are so 
too — in their measure, doubtless. Reason assures me of 
the reason of God, and that all revealed truth is reason- 
able, and that the supposition of its being otherwise is 
absurd. I know that God would not and could not re- 
veal what was not true and reasonable, and that revela- 
tion, moreover, is given for my instruction and benefit, 
and that I may be more acquainted with Him and His 
works and ways, and that He would rather have me 
know more than less of revealed truth, and of its rea- 
sons and grounds, and be going on unto perfection, and 
so be filled with all the fulness of God. The proof is 
two-fold: — Divine truth brought to the mind, and the 
mind acting intelligently on it, and including faith in it. 
God would not require us to believe that for which He 
did not give us good reason for believing. This reason 
might lie in the comprehension of the thing to be be- 
lieved, — in the relations of it, or in our knowledge of 
Him as its Re vela-tor. In any case the faith would be 
intelligent and reasonable. And hence the coincidence 
of reason and faith, and the consent "and harmony be- 
tween them ; — and the failure of Dr. Pusey was in the 
lack of analysis just here. It was in allowing reason 
to be subsidized by Geologists and positive-science men, 
and unwittingly admitting the conclusion that faith is 
without reason, and antagonistic to it, and toiling on 
continually against the irrepressible convictions of men, 
that what they may not see any reason for, they need 
not believe. Religion cannot afford such a sacrifice, 
and it was evident that the good Dr. winced in view 



REV. DR. PUSEY AT OXFORD. 205 

of the weakness of his positions, while pleading for 
faith at the expense of reason, until at length he identi- 
fied cause and effect, spoke of those intuitions of mind 
which apprehend the subject matter of revelation and 
to which it is made, and whose convictions are the 
ground of faith and which make it reasonable — as faith 
itself, and as being intuitions of faith, and thus enabling 
him to carry on his war against reason while pleading 
the claims of faith. His method was involved, and his 
logic limping, and his conclusions lacking in force, for 
want of distinction and precision of thought here. He 
failed to distinguish between the lower offices of the 
understanding in matters of sense and the higher one 
of reason, in apprehending moral and divine truth, and 
thus ignored its office work and prerogative in the mat- 
ter of Revelation. But this prerogative, reason, of ne- 
eessity, takes. Why believe the Bible and not the book 
of Mormon or the Koran"? To what is the appeal 
made ? Why not treat all pretenders alike; and who 
shall be judged, and what the umpire and tribunal to 
which they must come, and where their respective claims 
must be adjudicated ? What, but the reason that God 
has given us, and with which he communicates in a 
Revelation * Suppose the Bible failed in its morality, 
or acknowledged the existence of two Gods, or denied 
that virtue is obligatory or vice wrong % Would not this 
be fatal to it % and why ! It would then compromit the 
first truths of reason, and assert what we know could 
not be true. Why seek to justify the doctrines of Rev- 
elation to the principles of the being that God has given 
us. or write a book on theology, or preach a sermon, or 



206 KEV. DE. PUSEY AT OXFORD. 

distribute a tract * This foray on reason, in the matter 
of Revelation, is worse than idle. It is all a mislead. 
It is like giving up the citadel to the enemy in the hope 
of weakening some of his outposts. Geologists and the 
advocates of "positive science," whether of England or 
of any other country, may well rejoice over the surren- 
der we thus would make. Abnegate the province of 
reason in respect to Revelation, and deny that truth 
revealed, coming from the reason of God, to that he has 
given us, is not apprehensible to reason and approved 
of it, and that to believe in Revelation is not a dictate 
of reason, and, in the highest and best sense, is at once 
to fortify the rampart of error and undermine the found- 
ations of faith. What doctrine of the Bible is unrea- 
sonable ? What precept of it shall reason reject ? She 
will not foreshow the contents of Revelation, but will 
accept its light given and seek its help in solving every 
problem of humanity and truth. Men are infidels for 
want of light or of heart, and not because it is reason- 
able to be so. They lack faith because they do not ap- 
prehend the grounds of it, or because they hold the 
truth in unrighteousness. To repudiate reason is not 
the way to fight the battles of the Church. It will not 
be the method of her future advance to the empire of 
the world. She will become a power in the earth and 
move on to the conquest of the nations, very much as, 
under God, she subsidizes the intellect of the nations 
to her sway and commends herself to every man's con- 
science in the sight of God. 

3d. — The position of Dr. P. opens the way for all manner 
of vagaries in religious belief from the Bible, and legitima- 



REV. DR. PUSEY AT OXFORD. 207 

tizes them. It is this : — Revelation is made to faith ; it 
is beyond " the limits of human thought ;" it is not to 
be reached by any of the principles of truth common to 
men or known to the human mind ; it is without tests 
in its recipients ; it is an economy by itself, and lies in 
a plane of its own, which faith embraces and communes 
with, without the correspondence of the other principles 
of mind, and thus inaugurates a faith without discern- 
ment and discretion, " blind and sightless," as its trans- 
Atlantic apologist would say. Faith in revelation is 
without " insight or reason" and may not be criticised. 
And thus, for aught that the position admits, one faith 
is as good as another, and all faiths are equally legiti- 
mate, and it may be to the latent action of this princi- 
ple on the Doctor's own mind, that his leanings to 
Romanism are due, and to all that pomp and ceremony 
of a liturgic service which go to constitute the staple 
of Puseyism as it lies in the public mind. The Ana- 
baptists of Germany asserted their faith in the Bible, 
and so did Socinus and Emanuel Swedenborg. Why 
not accept their faith ? . Romanists believe that the 
bread and wine of the eucharist become literally the 
body and blood of Christ. Who shall challenge it ? 
Dr. Pusey scarcely does. Why not adopt all the frip- 
pery of the historic and legendary service of the Vatican, 
as you may see it in Rome or Paris, or even nearer 
home % It is because the Bible was given to our intel- 
ligent inspection and apprehension, and we do not find 
t this prudery and nonsense there, and would not justify 
or put ourselves on the level of the faith that blindly 
says it does. We do not stultify ourselves in accepting 



208 REV. DR. PUSEY AT OXFORD. 

revelation. We put it to the intelligence for whose 
benefit it was sent ; we submit it to the tests of reason 
all the way, as to whether it be a revelation, and as to 
what it contains, and as to whether its contents can be 
true. It brings news; — news that we should never 
otherwise get, but we must test it in these respects and 
see that for aught we know it may be true, and whether 
it is also so attested from on high as that it must be 
true, and authoritatively given, and obligatory. This is 
the doctrine of Protestantism and of all intelligent ap- 
prehension and use of the Word of God. And there is 
no difficulty or danger in this. It contains inevitably 
the terms of a reliable faith — a faith intelligent and re- 
sponsible. Why believe in the Trinity and not in its 
mode? The one is revealed, and, for aught we know, 
can be true as revealed, and moreover, has analogies 
elsewhere in nature and thought ; the other is not re- 
vealed. So in all the Bible. Its revelations are so 
allied to truths otherwise known, are so verified by the 
facts of history, and its doctrines so verified by the 
principles of all truth in the mind, or are so attested by 
Him, whom reason describes as a God of truth, that 
faith is every way reasonable and should be ready, 
prompt and universal — and the solution of the problem 
is easy and natural. God is one — one in nature, in the 
Bible and in the intelligent being that He has given us. 
He never contradicts himself. He may make commun- 
ications to us, but he will not contravene the reason He 
has given us. He shall throw floods of light on our^ 
pathway, as need shall be, but all in accordance with 
the economy of vision we have, and such as shall make 



REV. DR. PUSEY AT OXFORD. 209 

it the highest element and function of intellect and con- 
science to approve. Revelation is an addition to our 
knowledge, and for the growth and culture of the mind 
and heart, and must be in accordance with the principles 
of truth and thought that are in and of us. It is an 
advancement in the knowledge of God and in all right- 
eousness; and how can it contradict or repudiate the 
laws of mind, through which, if at all, we must make 
advances. Let us not give the citadel to the enemy. 
Let us regard Revelation as a help to reason, and not 
the antagonist of it, and faith in it as the highest reason, 
and not a rhapsody of the imagination for which no in- 
telligent account can be given; and in our ignorance 
and sin, let us thankfully accept light from any and 
every quarter, and especially from the pages of that 
Book which is sent to us from the bosom of infinite 
reason and goodness, in hope of the day when we "shall 
no more see in part, or prophesy in part, but see as we 
are seen, and know as we are known." 



14 



210 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 



LECTURE VII. 

"THE ATTITUDE OF CHRISTIAN EUROPE ON THE 
AMERICAN QUESTION." 

I may be expected to take a special interest "in this 
question, having met the "Evangelical Alliance" at Ge- 
neva, Switzerland, in September last, and having since 
visited different portions of England and the Continent, 
and while all eyes and hearts were intent on the strug- 
gle going on in this country, and on its bearings upon 
the interests of humanity and freedom and the cause of 
God. 

The question has a two-fold reference to England and 
the nations beyond, and with respect to each has char- 
acteristic features. 

England has been censured by some of us, and by 
many of us, it may be, too severely. She doubtless is 
not wanting in self-esteem, and her politicians would be 
quick to improve any opportunity of exalting her insti- 
tutions at the expense of our own. They have domes- 
tic and party ends to subserve in so doing. But the 
Government has not been betrayed into any hostile dem- 
onstration, and the people are yet to be more fully heard 
from. England was right in the Trent affair, by ou r 
own acknowledgment, and since then her utterances 
have been more cordial and conciliatory. We, quite 



THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 211 

likely, misunderstand her as much as she does us, and 
with less reason. 

Aside from merely temporal interests, her Christian 
sentiment asks mainly after the influence of the strug- 
gle on the slavery question. She is out of patience that 
so free a people as we are, and from whom freedom 
has expected so much, should be so long hampered by 
that question; she does not know what is implied in 
restoring the Constitution, the Government, and Laws. 
She significantly asks, " Can your Constitution and Gov- 
ernment do nothing about slavery but catch fugitives 
from it ; keep four millions in bondage and without 
rights, and sanction the hanging of John Brown f 
She sees that we do not understand ourselves in this 
struggle, as to its moral intent, and have varying views, 
in Congress and out, all the way from the New York 
Herald to Dr. Cheever, and says, if you are but to re- 
turn to the day of compromises and concessions to 
slavery, we have no heart to it. British ports, British 
ships, and British soil, know only the language of free- 
men, and we wonder that after so long a trial you can- 
not say so too. Their language is to us, " If you mean 
freedom why not say so, and especially now, and to 
those who abjure your Constitution and have risen in- 
arms against it. The restoration of the Government 
with slavery they have not much interest in, the restora- 
tion of it without we dare not affirm." 

England does not well comprehend onr doctrine of 
State rights and local law, and thinks that we are not 
true to our own convictions of the cause of the war and 
the real animus of it, in the attitude that we take in it. 



212' THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

She would have shorter logic and more direct issues 
with the main evil itself. She is more an abolitionist 
than we are, and it is because she is so, and not because 
she loves cotton, that she shows less sympathy with us 
than she otherwise would. 

I say this from frequent conversation there with men 
of large acquaintance and intercourse in the manufac- 
turing districts. Hence they will not touch our cotton 
or break our blockade ; but they want we should strike 
at the root of all evil and do it up for all time. 

We are probably doing all we can to accommodate 
them and ourselves in this behalf, as time will show, 
and have only to say, have patience, good mother, and 
you will be satisfied. We are doing the work as fast as 
we can, and as well as we know how. 

England is mystified with our domestic and constitu- 
tional complications with slavery, and would have us 
now break away from them. The inherent rights of 
man, as man, she would have us renew, as in our " De- 
claration of Independence.'-' She is enthusiastic at this 
point, even to women and children. She boasts of the 
lights of manhood in respect to all who step foot on 
her soil at home, in Canada, or elsewhere. There is a 
no more universal sentiment in England than this ; and 
we have only to renew that Declaration and apply it 
here, to wake up one long, loud shout of applause and 
sympathy from Land's End to "Johnny Groat's house" a 
few politicians and aristocrats excepted. 

Depend upon it the Christian part of England and 
her people generally are right in respect to the elements 
of this struggle, and as fast as they can appreciate the 



THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 213 

embarrassments of our position in relation to slavery as 
connected with it and our methods, will they give us 
their " God-send" and await the issue. We injure our- 
selves by doing injustice to their, convictions, or making 
too much of the utterances of their " yellow plush" press, 
or being too ready to resent a little of John Bullism 
that may now and then crop out. A more unexception- 
able tone of sentiment is even now observable. Fra- 
zer's Magazine for February has an able article by J. 
Stuart Mill, that is all we could ask on this subject; and 
is referred to as such by Mr. Bancroft in his oration on 
the 22d inst. It should be largely circulated in this 
country. Others will follow that will be satisfactory, 
and while we are at some loss to define our own posi- 
tion in respect to the acknowledged source of our 
troubles, and what we hope to do with it in the end, we 
may well afford to be generous in construing the con- 
victions of others on the subject. 

But I pass to the continent. Europe lies under two 
burdens : the oppression of the Church and of the 
State, — Romanism, and the political corporations con- 
nected with it. Freedom on the continent is rather a 
sentiment of the heart, than a realized idea. It is a 
hope, rather than an enjoyment. Thought is free, and 
may be freely expressed within certain limits, but is 
hedged in on every side with oppressive institutions. 

The friends of freedom and human rights there have 
long looked to this country, as its established home and 
support. They expected help from us, in the solution 
of problems, yet to be worked out there. They knew 
we had a free Church and an open Bible, and could 



214 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

hardly understand it, that we should yet have to pass 
through so fiery an ordeal in establishing the freedom of 
the State. Nothing could exceed the sympathy of that 
Congress of Nations (I may call it) which was assembled 
at Geneva, They were the "elite" of all Europe, — 
scholars, clergymen, Christians, statesmen, the friends of 
man and friends of God, and bent in sorrow, as mani- 
fested by inquiries at every turn and corner, over the 
fratricidal war, raging here. 

This manifested itself in the opening speech of their 
President (M. A. Naville) on our reception, as he said, 
"Welcome, brethren of America, who have quitted 
your distant homes at a solemn moment. Oar thoughts 
carry us without ceasing to the sorrowful crisis, at which 
you have arrived. The United States are not forgotten 
in our prayers. Our firm confidence is that a country 
which has done so much for the cause of Christ, can 
only receive blessing in the end. What thanks will the 
Christians of Europe, as of America, render on the day 
when your noble country will be only, and everywhere, 
the land of free men /" 

The American meeting of the Alliance, for which a 
day was set down, was looked forward to with much 
enquiry and expectation, and the hope often expressed 
that we would there bring out the American question. 
The opening prayer at the meeting by Rev. Baptist Noel 
of London, was all on that subject, and it was just after 
the affair at Bull Run, and all in sympathy with the 
North and freedom. And as addresses that followed 
from the American Delegation brought out the moral 
elements of the strife, and the aims and hopes of the 



THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 215 

North in behalf of the Union as connected with the 
cause of humanity and freedom and the surrender of 
the institution of African slavery in this country, the 
unwonted applause and gratulations of the meeting 
were no uncertain proof of where the heart was on the 
American question. 

Pastor Fisch of Paris closed the meeting with prayer, 
and it was all on the same subject. He had been in 
this country, both North and South. He knew the na- 
ture of the struggle, and his intercessions were all that 
the utmost advocates for human rights, the success of 
our arms, and the freedom of the slave, could ask. But 
the congregation had by this time become too much in- 
terested in the subject to be contented with one meet- 
ing, and, led off by Sir Culling Eardley of England, a 
second was called for. At that, further addresses were 
made, explanations given, and the resolution presented, 
which as modified by the General Committee on the 
subject, received the sanction of the Alliance as a whole, 
and has been widely circulated both in Europe and 
America. 

The peculiar excellence and value of this paper, was 
that while it was fully in the interest of humanity and 
freedom, it accepted the proclamation of our own Pres- 
ident, for a day of fasting and prayer, and requested 
Europe to join with us in its observance. The occasion 
was to some extent observed over the water. At Paris 
the American Church was nearly filled on that day, and 
a deep impression made by the sermon of Dr. McClin- 
tock, the pastor, who preached on the subject. 

We have all read Count Gasparin's book, " The Up- 



216 THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 

rising of a Great People," and noted the magnificent 
fulfillment of its prophecies and its logic, in events that 
have followed. He is one of the finest scholars, and 
most distinguished Christian statesmen of the age, and 
with such men as he is, to enlighten France and the 
Continent, and Stuart Mill and others to catechize Eng- 
land, and such men, as we may trustfully boast of, to 
direct and lead our armies and fight our battles, under 
Him on high to whom we would commit our cause, 
may we not expect results that will gladden both hem- 
ispheres, in giving stability and value to our govern- 
ment, unity to our country, and equal rights as free 
men, to all of eveiy name, and hue, and cast ? 



THE FUTURE OF EUROPE. 217 



LECTURE VIII. 

THE FUTURE OF EUROPE. 

Europe is the centre of the. world's civilization. 
Since the fall of the ancient empires, the reconstruction 
of society has been there. Asia has long been sunk 
away into the quietude and stagnation of a heathen or 
half heathen state, and receives all her symptoms of re- 
vivescence and life, in influences from the land of the 
west. Africa, with what of ancient civilization she 
boasted, in the countries bordering on the Mediterra- 
nean and in Egypt, is yet an unredeemed, unexplored 
continent, tipped with the silvery touch of modern ideas 
at the Cape of Good Hope, and on a few other points, 
while America is yet a new land, a transplant from 
Europe, and buoyant with the blossoms of hope, but 
not yet arrived into the maturity and fruitage of years 
in its national life. 

On the European continent, the ancient races of the 
earth have met and mingled, have struggled for centuries 
against the darkness of the past, and essayed a greater 
privilege in art arid science for the future, and there 
have they been wrought into empires that now largely 
shape and control the destinies of mankind. America 
is already a power in this respect, and will be increasing- 
ly so, but the central forces are in Europe. And they 
seem not to have spent their strength. New dynasties 



218 THE FUTURE OF EUROPE. 

arise, and new modifications of empire are taken on, 
and will be. But these will only be improvements and 
the increase of strength. Humanity will move on, with 
an ever augmenting accumulation of ideas, and a higher 
type of Christian civilization. Giant impediments will 
be undermined and disappear ; new elements enter into 
the composition of the forces of the future, and new re- 
sults be wrought out under that Divine Providence 
which is beneficent in its aims, and secure of its purpose. 
What, then, will be the future of that continent, and 
what the forces that shall control it % 

Prophecy is not the gift of ordinary generations, or 
even of observant minds. We can but roughly forecast 
the future from the past, and see a little way before us 
and that imperfectly. 

The human mind has laws, and so has society and 
Divine Providence. These are potential and perduring. 
From them we may calculate the composition of forces 
which shape the present, and disclose proximately the 
overcoming. 

Europe is under the sway of three races of people, 
which, discarding the forgotten and ambiguous epithets 
of the past, we may name in the language of the pres- 
ent, ?,s the English, the French and the German. To 
this must now be added the Russian, as a power more 
recently known and acknowledged. 

These races and nations have distinct characteristics 
and appropriate parts to play in the progress of Euroj>ean 
society, and in the development of that which shall be. 
They are built on different bases, have ideas peculiar to 
each, and institutions and aims in which the others do 



THE FUTURE OF EUROPE. 219 

not sympathize. And yet human nature is everywhere 
essentially the same. Man is one, and so is the Prov- 
idence of God, and both are tending in different forms, 
and under various phases, to a common and grand 
result : the improvement and benefit of the race and 
the millennial state of the church. 

The States of Europe are like Nebuchadnezzar's im- 
age, in which some parts and elements were of durable 
material and some of miry clay. Of the effete and 
worn out systems and habitudes of things there, it is 
safe to conclude that the matter of the " temporalities of 
the church" of Rome is one. This has long rested like 
night-mare on cabinets and kingdoms, but events indi- 
cate its speedy consummation. 

Rome is the centre of Italy, and the natural seat of 
empire for it. Victor Emanuel and his Cabinet are 
anxious to get there, and proclaim his constitution from 
the steps of the " Quirinal." As yet, French troops 
sustain the Pope at Rome, and the immediate vicinity 
of it, against the wishes of the people themselves and 
the desire of all the rest of Italy. But there is a double 
game in all this, which is well understood both at the 
Court of Turin and at the Tuilleries. Napoleon has 
held, and yet holds, Rome, to keep Austria out of it, 
and guards the Pope to keep others from doing it. He 
would have the key himself and choose the time for 
surrendering it. He is loyal to the cause of a united 
Italy under Victor Emanuel, and is quite contented 
with the influence which he would have there, through 
the Prince Napoleon and his wife Clotilde, who is a 



220 THE FUTURE OF EUROPE. 

daughter of Victor Emanuel, and proud of her lineage 
from the house of SavoyJ 

It is for that house transferred to Italy that Rome is 
kept. The obstacles to its surrender hitherto, lie in 
France and over Catholic Europe. The question of the 
temporalities of the church is involved, and even the 
French clergy and the Catholic dignitaries there, are 
not yet reconciled to the Pope's being shorn of his 
temporal dominion. Even protestant Guizot has of late, 
in an elaborate article, appeared against it. His argu- 
ment is simply this, that as temporal jurisdiction is and 
has been the chosen method of that church, she would be 
denied her privilege without it, not aware that there are 
many things, that the Church of Rome has chosen, be- 
sides temporal dominion and the dungeons of the Inqui- 
sition and the " auto de fe," that the course of progress 
and the world's future must deny men. 

Napoleon's greatest struggle in this matter is with 
the Romanism of France itself, and the disloyal utter- 
ances of his own clergy. He is temperately rebuking 
them, and watching the signs of decay in the good old 
Pope, and anticipating his obsequies as the apology and 
the period of change and action. 

This must soon come, and then, too, if not before, 
will come the last and successful struggle for Venetia, 
with France to sustain the rightful claims of Italy, and 
cementing the two nations still more together in a com- 
mon policy, with common interests at stake. The Med- 
iterranean is now sometimes called a " French Lake," 
and it meets entirely the views of Napoleon that Italy 
should be held by a friendly obligated power. . Hence- 



THE FUTURE OF EUROPE. 221 

forth, and for the dynasties that yet appear, they are to 
the rest of Europe and its future, substantially one. 
And there is an element of progress in them, that is 
sometimes overlooked. They have the American idea 
of civil government as emanating from the people, and 
existing on the consent and suffrage of the governed. 
It was a large stride in that direction when Napoleon 
was made Emperor by the votes of his people and 
through the ballot-box of France. How much of priv- 
ilege and how much of constraint ruled the hour, we 
cannot say. But the form was democratic. It inaug- 
urated the doctrine that the people rule, and that author- 
ity is by the consent of the governed. It perpetuated 
the French Revolution and makes the present Emperor, 
in his robes, a child of it. This is claimed for him by 
the Prince Napoleon, his cousin, in open debate in the 
French Chambers, and would not be denied by himself, 
if his proverbial taciturnity would deem politic an utter- 
ance on the subject. And if his own son should, after 
a few years, be proposed as heir apparent to the throne, 
the suffrages of the army first, perhaps, and then of the 
people, will be secured to that effect. 

A much more significant advance and omen of the 
future is the popular vote of Italy. Victor Emanuel has 
not moved a step without it. He has asked it in Naples, 
Sicily and the Duchies, and elsewhere. Tuscany owns 
him as her elected king, and set up Jris throne in the 
Industrial Exhibition in Florence, October, 1862, to in- 
augurate it. The voting too is of the nature of univer- 
sal suffrage, and fully endorses the American idea of 
civil government, that authority emanates from the peo- 



222 THE FUTURE OF EUROPE. 

pie. It will not soon be forgotten. It springs from the 
law of progress, and will be among the mementos and 
the forces which will enfranchise and regenerate Italy 
and set her among the foremost of kingdoms in the 
world's civilization and future. 

To Italy, France will be adjunct, in the matter of pro- 
gress. Her Emperor says he knows his epoch, — that 
he has got glory enough in war, and seeks the arts of 
peace and the industrial and educational elevation of his 
people. He is a writer and a thinker, and at the begin- 
ning of a dynasty can take his course. His mind is 
eminently philosophical and forecasting. His book on 
the unity and freedom of Italy was written years ago, 
and has in it many far-reaching principles on popular 
rights and representative government. He knows what 
Europe needs, and regards with no favor the old dynas- 
ties and pledged civil corporations of the papal school. 
He is cautious and non-committal, but sees his place and 
his glory, at the head of free thought and popular rights 
on the continent of Europe. He is doubtless in corres- 
pondence with Kossuth and the protector of the Hun- 
garian movement, and when Garibaldi gets Venetia for 
Italy, and the question of Hungary comes up, he will be 
found the friend of the Magyar and of the restoration of 
his power. That day is hastening on, and with it will 
come a great advance of popular privilege and immunity 
for the South of Europe, sustained by the material guaran- 
tees and leading co-operation of France and Italy. The 
throne of Austria is built on aggression and wrong. 
From a moderate principality of Germany, it has, by 
every method of strategy and war, beat down its neigh- 



THE FUTURE OF EUROPE. 223 

bors, and, for centuries, under the lead of the astute and 
unscrupulous Hapsburgs, claimed to be the central power 
of the continent. She has been, and is, bigotedly cath- 
olic. Her king and government are in sworn league 
and servility to Rome, and must share her destiny. 

It is wonderful how papal courts and countries are 
behind the age ; slow in progress ; clinging to the past ; 
stereotyped to the infallibility of mother church ; trust- 
ing to the Pope to do their thinking for them, while he 
and his subordinates think most how they shall drug and 
rule the civil power. Look at poor impoverished Mex- 
ico on this side of the water, and all South America 
indeed ; at Spain and the Popish cantons of Switzerland. 
Austria repudiates the doctrine of popular sovereignty, 
and is stout for the divine right of kings. She uttered 
her veto, when the ballot box came to Italy, and when 
it asked the Tuscans, and the people of Modena and 
Parma, who should rule over them. She is wedded to 
the weal and fortunes of the Pope, and must be includ- 
ed in them. It is the afternoon of their power. The 
Hapsburghs have more enemies than they can contend 
against, and must, with the elements of misrule and 
false rule, which they have so long harbored, sink Aus- 
tria into comparative littleness and obscurity again be- 
fore the forces of the future. 

Hungary will again be a power, and be one in the 
direction and interest of the franchises of the people, 
and will largely influence the future of south-eastern 
Europe. A new nation, with the consent of Russia, 
will probably be set off on the banks of the lower Dan- 
ube, and be a dividing limit between it and Turkey. 



224 THE FUTURE OF EUROPE. 

The Bulgarian church has already asserted independence, 
and though cloven down at present, will rise again and 
under the tuition of American Missions and other 
sources of light, appear in the interest of freedom. 

The German States, with Prussia at their head, will 
undoubtedly be a factor in the future of Europe, but 
not so decidedly as others already named. Some of 
them are yet Roman Catholic, and they are also check- 
mated in their general influence, by their great number 
and minute policy. The scholars of Germany will con- 
tinue their explorations in the domain of ideas, and as 
heretofore will keep giving to the world the materials 
of knowledge, but others will construct them into sys- 
tems and control governments thereby. Prussia and 
the subordinate States, with perhaps Belgium and Hol- 
land, will do for a balance wheel at the centre, or a 
make weight for progress in the future of Europe ; the 
electrifying agencies will be elsewhere. The Bona- 
partes and the Garibaldis will be born in warmer lati- 
tudes, and be nursed by more impetuous and fervid 
skies. 

Pussia is a recent element of power in Europe, but 
her voice will be heard, as now, and for the century 
back, in the arrangements of the future. Her policy at 
present the most resembles that of Napoleon. Her con- 
siderate Emperor is quite content to develop the material 
resources of his people and remove hindrances out of 
the way of their collective prosperity and greatness. 
Hence he is undermining local aristocracies, liberating 
serfs by millions, and endeavoring to bring the varied 
nationalities over his wide domains, into shape and ho- 



THE FUTURE OF EUROPE. 225 

mogeneity. He has many advantages, and much to do, 
and what the result will be is yet a problem, though it 
bids fair to bring out Russia as a first-rate power for 
good in the more distant future. 

Leaving the other Scandinavian nations of the north, 
as also those of the southern peninsula, (Spain and Por- 
tugal,) to the subordinate destiny which Providence 
allots them, I come eventually to England, and her de- 
pendencies, as a power in moulding the future of the 
continent in which she has had so large an influence in 
ages past. 

England is a cosmopolitan empire, separated by water 
from the rest of Europe. Her dominions belt the globe. 
She has long monopolized the commerce of the seas, 
and grown rich on the traffic of all nations. Others are 
now contesting it with her, but as the wealth of the 
world is only beginning to be developed, there is room 
for all, with mutual advantage to each. The commer- 
cial resources, the intelligence and Christianity of Eng- 
land will give her a large il not commanding influence 
in the future of Europe. The great question will turn 
on the matter of religions. The contest on that con- 
tinent will be between Protestantism and Romanism, 
and the governments under their sway. This is the 
general conviction in Europe now, and her diplomats 
are wistfully watching for, and providing against it. In 
the meantime Romanism is getting into conflict with 
the civil power, and is beleaguered by her own doctrine 
of unity and infallibility. She must never give irp a 
point, and yet there are some points she must give up. 
She will never yield, but under protest, the inarches and 
15 



226 THE FUTURE OF EUROPE. 

the patrimony of St. Peter, and yet the civil power 
claims them, and will get them, and should have them. 
She never had any rights fairly vested in them. Her 
pretensions are those no spiritual power should set up, 
and are in dereliction of the fundamental aphorism of 
Jesus — " My kingdom is not of this world." These pre- 
tensions and this persistence in them perplex and weak- 
en her, and will he to her an element of subsidence and 
decay. 

Popery is eminently a state religion, and enforces its 
claims in league with the civil power. This is altogeth- 
er abnormal, and is growing unpopular among the more 
intelligent classes of people and must be repudiated by 
the future. State complication will yet rend the Catholic 
Church. She will have eventually to throw herself upon 
intelligent issues, and her claims to regard, as an econo- 
my of belief and practice : and there she will fail. 
She must be modified, or be lost. The world will have 
free thought, and the free expression of it. It will have 
an intelligent faith, and master the impediments that 
Romanism has thrown in the way. The future agita- 
tions of Europe will turn increasingly in this direction. 
They will be mainly moral issues, and England and 
France, with Italy, will be in the advance guard of them. 
Napoleon III has already claimed that France is the 
only power in Europe that will go to war for " an idea." 
Other nations will do it too. The masses will be stirred 
en the question of human rights, both in the State and 
the Church, both in law and religion ; conscience will 
have increasing sway ; other Garibaldis will arise to 
clear the track for freedom ; other Whitfields and Wes- 



THE FUTURE OF EUROPE. 227 

leys aud Rouges and Passaglias and Count de Gaspierres 
to preach a spiritual gospel from an open Bible, and 
Europe rejoice in a regeneration from on high. The 
time may not be yet, but is coming. We connect the 
present aspect of things, as we have a right to, with 
the recorded purpose and promise of God. Paris has 
more evangelical effort now, than for a long time before, 
and revivals of religion, in the American sense, are en- 
joyed in some of its suburbs and small protestant con- 
gregations. So in Lyons, Havre, and other places in 
France. Napoleon sees his glory in the line of increas- 
ing intelligence, and free thought and the rights of hu- 
manity in Europe, and as policy shall admit, will be 
found in the front ranks on the car of progress. The 
English are among the freest people in the world. 
They have taxes but they have freedom of thought, and 
of speech, and of the press, and glory in their " House 
of Commons" as the palladium of their rights. These 
two nations have a common policy of which they are 
aware, and it will not be easy to divert them from it. 
Russia, too, is bent on improvement, and has a co-ordi- 
nate aim. To these three powers we are to look for the 
chief governmental forces that shall shape the future of 
Europe. Providence will use them for good, we may 
hope. They will at least do for the scaffolding of the 
building, and more. God will honor them as the means 
of light and blessing to Europe, and of the introduction 
and progress of that eventual Christian civilization to 
the masses to which we look forward and for which we 
pray. 



228 EUROPE AS CONTRASTED WITH AMERICA. 



LECTURE IX. 

EUROPE AS CONTRASTED WITH AMERICA. 

The geological structure of America may indicate 
that it is an older continent than Europe; not so, the 
habitation of man upon it. Its rivers may be longer 
and broader, and stretch on through more latitudes and 
longitudes, but our mountains are less abrupt and bold 
in outline, — less imposing and sublime. The Allegha- 
nies are but the backbone of the Continent, with here and 
there a rounded protuberance on them, of extra hight 
and significance. Such are the Green Mountains and 
those of New Hampshire and Maine stretching toward 
the Gulf of St. Lawrence. That congeries of swells 
and elevations, known as the Adirondacs, and other 
ranges of Northern New York, so fitly styled the Swe- 
den of America, as they appear in so much variety and 
beauty of outline to one at Burlington, or at other points 
along the Western slope of Vermont, are modest and 
unpretentious compared with European mountains. If 
we have quite away in South America both an Amazon 
and a Chimborazo, we have not the Alps here at the 
North, with its continent of mountain peaks, piling 
the heavens, shuddering in eternal snow. The icebergs 
that stare on us occasionally, grim and threatening as 
we cross the Atlantic, come down from Greenland and 
Spitsbergen, and the glacier of a thousand years, is the 



EUROPE AS CONTRASTED WITH AMERICA. 229 

fruit of European altitudes and declivities. Even sunny 
Italy and the valley of the Po, the lowest on that Con- 
tinent, look out in the not far distance on perennial frost 
and ice. The Alps, with the spurs that shoot out from 
them, are the characteristic feature in the profile of Eu- 
rope, but it would be an error to suppose it had not a 
large extent of level and champaign country. Many 
parts of France are so, as are Belgium and Holland, and 
the regions bordering on the Baltic Sea. All the South 
of England would thus be considered, excepting the 
mountains of Wales on its western border. 

But we tarry not on the physical outlines of the old 
world, as contrasted with the new. The difference lies 
chiefly in its human and moral features and aspects, and 
first in the measure of material and social progress there 
manifested. That appears like a mature arid fully de- 
veloped country. The roads and fences, and fields and 
farms ; the cities and towns, and villas and gardens, and 
grounds ; its ornamental walks and shade trees, all are 
finished up and fully grown and in nearer perfection 
than with us. We have begun a thousand things, and 
much it may be that they have not, or have given up 
and forgotten. Ours is the era of experiment, of inven- 
tion, and trial. We have new schemes on almost all 
subjects. In agriculture . and ornamental gardens, in 
architecture and the application of the mechanic arts, 
in business and in manners, in domestic and social life, 
we are a nation of original and independent thinkers 
and actors. Each has a way of his own and blocks it 
out to suit himself.. 

Our government is yet a novelty. Our institutions 



230 EUBOPE AS CONTRASTED WITH AMERICA. 

and legislation and country itself are new. A century- 
has not tested them. We are a nation of beginners. 
And though we have the light of history, and are here 
setting up for ourselves, under all the advantages furn- 
ished in the past, yet it is a new application of theories, 
a new adjustment of principles, and a new economy of 
habits and practice, that, to say the most, has not come 
to full maturity. 

Our intercourse is more miscellaneous and unsettled. 
There is an air of independence and freedom from rule 
in our manners. We think as we please and speak as 
we think. There are no privileged orders among us, — 
no titled distinctions. The forces of society have en- 
tered into new composition, and are combined, it is 
hoped, for a future more elevated and ennobling, more 
in accordance with the rights of humanity and the 
cause of God ; but they have not yet taken on them the 
polish and mature resultant appearance and finish of 
older communities. This is quite observable by an 
American traveling in Europe. You may not be able 
to describe it, but it is everywhere impressed on you in 
the features of society, — of men and things there. One 
may pass the length of the continent without intrusion 
or trespass upon his feelings or rights. We sometimes 
adjudge John Bull to be a burly fellow, but I have not 
seen it in England, or in the Cunard line of steamers, 
but on the other hand, a finished country, and respect 
for the rights of others, and a careful regard for their 
feelings, and the claims of hospitality and friendship, 
worthy of all commendation. The politeness of the old 
world is less obtrusive and officious, but more finished 



EUROPE AS CONTRASTED WITH AMERICA. 231 

and complete. It seems to know just where to stop and 
leave you to your manhood, and liberty, and rights, 
without giving or expecting offense. Personal liberty 
is said to be the freest and most undoubted in France, 
of any nation. Said one in the city of Lyons, " Every- 
body is safe here ; for every one knows we have a police 
that will lay its strong hand on the beginning of dis- 
order." And hence the stability and fixedness of the 
old country. It seems to have reached conclusions 
more than we have. There is an air of reliability im- 
pressed on the aspect of everything there. Except in 
large mercantile transactions the currency of Europe is 
in the precious metals. The traveler may take his letter 
of credit frcm London or Paris, but he must pay his 
bills in gold md silver. Napoleons and Sovreiegns and 
the rough Go-man thaler must meet his necessities on 
the road ; and after a season of travel there, it seems 
quite worthless and humiliating to deal again in dirty 
and tattered collar bills here. 

The Railroads of Europe are not so numerous as in 
this country, lut in construction and arrangement they 
surpass us, ard in the safety and convenience of the 
passenger on hem. If they are more expensive, they 
are more perfect, and more guarded against danger and 
harm on everyhand. The idea of permanency is every- 
where in the ascendant. Walls, dwellings, castles, roads 
and fences, hav« the air of durability. On the elevation 
subtending the easterly side of Havre, where one takes 
a land and water view of town and country, and river 
and ocean, and harbors and ships, second only to that 
of Naples, in all Europe ; the long line of private pal- 



232 EUROPE AS CONTRASTED WITH -AMERICA. 

aces and villas is walled in with solid and rough stone 
and mortar, with the privilege of beholding the glories 
of shrubbery and trees and flowers, and all the exuber- 
ance of ornamental gardening, from the loop holes, only, 
at the needed gates of necessity, if not grudgingly furn- 
ished. On the outside it is simple stone-work inclosure, 
too high for sight or intrusion ; within it is gorgeous 
with all manner of fruits and flowers, and every effort 
of taste and art. This is characteristic of private resi- 
dences and grounds everywhere on the Continent, and 
largely so in England. You ring the bell fiom the un- 
social wall in the street ; the porter emerges from his 
lodge there. The Colleges of Oxford present a dull 
outline on the street outside, and you enW by a gate 
in the wall, to open quadrangles, and multiplied lawns, 
and gardens, and walls, and structures vithin. Near 
that city is now to be seen, and in good repair, a church 
that was built before the Norman conquest. It has 
stood for near a thousand years, and though antique in 
model, unaccommodating in its proportion and uncouth 
in its architecture, holds yet its Sabbath ; congregation, 
and may do it for centuries to come. 

One is deeply impressed with this feature of fixedness 
and durability in visiting Westminister Abjey. It groups 
the ages together. The past and the present abidf there. 
It is the receptacle and the memento of Ingiand's great 
ones, throughout her history. There, thfy live in costly 
monumental magnificence ; in marble slib, and entabla- 
ture, and humble niche ; in stately pride and royal deco- 
ration, carved in enduring stone ; kings aid their queens ; 
lords, statesmen, and poets, and scholars, and good men 



EUROPE AS CONTRASTED WITH AMERICA. 266 

and bad. There are Nelson, and the Iron Duke, and 
Wilberforce, and Watts, and from them, and later back, 
clear to the Heptarchy. There they are in silent and 
enduring permanency. The ages move by, but they 
heed it not. Generations come and go, but this only 
marks their epoch, and sets up new mementos along the 
corridors of the goodly old Abbey. Verily, thought I, 
as traversing its halls and transepts, and passages and 
chapels, rich with the records of time gone by, and as 
I came myself, fresh from the decorations of the "Arch 
of Triumph" on the hights of Paris, inscribed all over 
with the victories of one Napoleon ; if France is emu- 
lous of the glory of the present and the future, England 
has garnered up with care the greatness of the past. 

But I approach an allied feature of European socie- 
ty, — of her great and good men, — her scholarship and 
science, — her research in literature and the arts. Poli- 
tics is not so universal a study in Europe as in this coun- 
try. The current present, has not so strong a hold on 
the public mind there as here. The proportion of those 
that take the daily or even the weekly newspaper, is not 
a tenth as large as with us. Grades and classes of the 
people are more distinct and isolated, and more appro- 
priately within their own sphere, in their habits and 
range of thought. General education is less extended. 
Many in their condition are sunk below an interest in 
public affairs ; and politics and things of State are more 
the trade of the few than the study of the many. This 
is less true in England than on the continent. But even 
there a property qualification exists, and scarcely the 
half of the men of adult age are voters. France boasts 



234 EUROPE AS CONTRASTED WITH AMERICA. 

of universal suffrage, but this matter there is disposed of 
in a very summary way, as the past has verified. The 
voting in Italy was on a large scale, and the doctrine of 
the ballot-box is most likely as well understood there, 
and as highly appreciated, as in any continental country. 
But the great minds of Europe, her sages and wise 
men, are more engrossed in the enduring problems of 
science and truth. They dwell more in the past, and in 
the philosophy of fact and history. They have a riper 
scholarship than we can boast, and more facilities for 
attaining it. They have a large literature, and more 
minute habits of investigation. They have more leis- 
ure for it, and more readers, and work themselves up to 
a higher criticism on every subject of thought. Even 
their greatest statesmen of this day, are authors, too, of 
scientific and literary works, that do honor to the age. 
This is especially true of France and England. Pre- 
miers and ministers of State are also chancellors of uni- 
versities, and competitors for classic fame, as for polit- 
ical ascendency and greatness. One of the most astute 
and philosophic of them has said, " The Germans give 
us the materials of knowledge, the French systematize 
them, and the English put them to use."* This testi- 
mony is doubtless true, and it points to the leading 
sources of intelligence and thought in Europe the pres- 
ent day, and gives their characteristics. The German 
mind is more original, and reaches after the sources of 
investigation and truth, and propounds its results re- 
gardless of consequences ; the French more construc- 
tive and elaborate in the science and philosophy of facts, 
* M. Guizot, in Ms history of civilization in France. 



EUROPE AS CONTRASTED WITH AMERICA. 235 

and the principles of inquiry and thought; While in 
England, the estimate of value is on everything. The 
British mind is eminently practical and utilitarian. Even 
the Scotch in the Masters of Edinburgh and Glasgow 
have given us no system of philosophy. They have 
written well on particular topics, but their works are 
rather fragmentary than complete on any one science. 

But each nation supplements the others in its efforts 
and influence on the domain of the true and the possi- 
ble, and we, in America, have the benefit of all and may 
hope, with our younger literature, and ready access, and 
aspiring ambition, to emerge into a future " pari passu ," 
with our trans- Atlantic cousins of either stock. 

In some things we have the advantage, and here we 
may remember that Europe, and especially the conti- 
nent, is weighed down with two burdens, — despotism in 
Church and in State. We have solved some problems 
that are yet unsolved there, and are, we trust, in our 
present fiery ordeal, finishing up a successful conflict 
with the last and greatest of our political and social 
evils. But free thought in Europe is yet only in the be- 
ginning of the end. The might of ecclesiastical and 
civil rule is against it, while the masses of the people in 
their culture and preparation are hardly equal to its re- 
sponsibilities. The best minds there, are working out 
its first lessons, and sighing after their greater realiza- 
tion. Italy has failed again and again, though now, we 
trust, on the tide of successful experiment Hungary 
has failed as yet, and Poland, too, with yet poorer pros- 
pects for the future. And even France, after spending 
millions of treasure and oceans of blood, is now trying 



236 EUROPE AS CONTRASTED WITH AMERICA. 

the hope of freedom, by the method of tyrannic sway. 
The States of Germany were electrified a few years 
since by the fiery eloquence of Rouge, but its visible ef- 
fects have passed off, and William of Prussia, at the re- 
cent coronation at Rounisburg, a year or two since, has 
inaugurated with unusual pomp and significance, if not 
puerility, the doctrine of the "divine right of kings." 

There is a logic in events, and progress is made un- 
doubtedly in the direction of freedom and human rights 
in Em-ope ; but it is slow and subject to many mischances 
and aberrations. Austria is yet a despotism, and its Em- 
peror a disciple of the Jesuits, and will recede from his 
patriotism only when he must, and then as little as he can. 
The Northern nations inspire more hope, for in that 
quarter rulers are in advance of their people, and lead 
the van of civilization. 

The grand impediment to progress in Europe, and 
the great contrast between it and this country at this 
point, lies in the theory of government, both civil and 
ecclesiastical. Its method and its end are abnormal 
there. In both respects it is vested in the divine right 
of rulers in themselves to rule over the people. The 
masses are regarded only as subjects of law and under 
authority both in Church and State. Popes, bishops, 
and clergy, — emperors and kings, and potentates of 
every grade, claim direct designation from God to dis- 
pense government to the people, without their consent, 
and without an acknowledged accountability to them. 
This was the old doctrine, and is now, to a large extent, 
in all Europe. It is thought to be the prescription of 
religion and the Bible, and gives importance to the 



EUROPE AS CONTRASTED WITH AMERICA. 237 

question of legitimacy and hereditary succession in 
Church and State. It rests like a night-mare on the 
conscience of the nations, and constitutes the terror of 
the oppressor's rod. It is the magic wand of absolutism 
on the continent, and freedom cowers beneath it. The 
American doctrine of the rights of man as man, and 
of the origin of human government in the equal rights 
of men, and as emanating from their inherent personal- 
ity and duty of self-government, is not fully born and 
extant there. The Puritans learned it through long 
and sore trials. They were schooled in it, " in a great 
fight and furnace of afflictions." It was the fruit of 
ceasing from man and appealing to God. It was a 
necessity of the Mayflower, of Plymouth Rock, and 
of Pilgrim New England. It was so in respect to both 
ecclesiastical and civil government, and of the one, no 
less than the other. It was self-government, and amen- 
ability to God, expanding into social and mutual con- 
trol for highest good, under allegiance to Him. It ad- 
mitted two functions in man — that of constituting gov- 
ernment, and of submitting to it ; that of making the 
laws and obeying them, being in both under law to 
God. Every man is thus both ruler and subject. Gov- 
ernment emanates from the people, and has for its end 
the highest freedom and general good of all. This is 
the American doctrine, and it was the child of Divine 
Providence. This country was held in reserve for it 
and its development. Those sea-worn veterans, and 
severe students of the Bible, hunted from all Europe, to 
a virgin continent here, could do nothing less than con- 
stitute it. In the language of one of New England's 



238 EUROPE AS CONTRASTED WITH AMERICA. 

most favored sons, and which have gained the familiar- 
ity and significance of household songs, they were 
placed where they must have " a Church without a bish- 
op, and a State without a king." 

It was thus that they interpreted the idea of divine 
right, and held a government thus constituted to be 
" the ordinance of God" and " a terror to evil doers." 

And why is not this the more sensible view, with the 
checks and balances of its representative system, and 
why not best adapted in its administration and observ- 
ances to secure a conscientious regard to the inspired 
announcement and requisition, " So then every one of us 
shall give account of himself to God ?" 

But this theory of government is of slow growth in 
European countries. England uses it with great and 
increasing effect in the lower House of Parliament. It 
has been wrung from her sovereigns and brought out in 
her judgments at common law, from the days of Magna 
Gharta and Rimnymede. France has had some lessons 
in it, and will never forget them. Even now our eye 
falls upon the opening speech of the Emperor, pointing 
significantly to the Roman question and the jurisdiction 
of the Papacy, and to the address of the Prince Napo- 
leon in the Chamber of Deputies, where he comments 
more fully on the subject, and boldly asserts that the 
Empire in France has its argument and expression, in 
the principles of liberty ascertained in the will of the 
French people. His words are, " The Empire is found- 
ed on the principles of the Revolution correctly under- 
stood." He quoted from a work of Victor Cousin, 
these words : " France is not fickle or difficult to govern, 



EUROPE AS CONTRASTED WITH AMERICA. 239 

and desires only the regular development of the prin- 
ciples of the Revolution ;" and added : " Those are my 
opinions." " For my part, I say boldly, that I have no 
fear for a government which is rooted in the hearts of 
the people ; and while it remains true to the principle 
of nationalities abroad, and to the liberal and popular 
sentiment at home, it may defy all — even the agitation 
of the clergy." The Prince then closed with the fol- 
lowing extract from " Thier's History of the French 
Revolution," as "exactly expressing his own opinions:" 
" I belong to the party of revolution as well in France 
as in Europe. I desire that the government of France 
may remain in the hands of modern men. I will do all 
I can for that. But, though the government should 
pass into the hands of men less moderate than myself, 
— ardent men and radicals, — I would not abandon my 
course on that account ; I should still be of the party 
of the Revolution" 

Here is the cropping out of the American theory of 
government, both on the part of the Historian and the 
Prince that cites him. It is on the subject of the 
Romish clergy, and their interference in the affairs 
of the government ; and it is quite significant from one 
so near the throne, and by marriage prospective heir 
of Italy, and who, by the way, had just returned from 
this country. It strikes a chord which is beginning to 
vibrate with tension and effect in that country. Clothilde 
is a proud and aspiring princess, and her father wields 
a constitutional sceptre. Austria, in the recent struggles, 
has repudiated the doctrine of popular rights, and 
cleaves to the despotism of Rome. But both are effete 



240 EUROPE AS CONTRASTED WITH AMERICA. 

and worn out corporations. The free aspirations of Eu- 
rope are against them, and though much in doubt and 
lacking consent and harmony, is sighing for a recon- 
struction, more in accordance with human rights and 
popular freedom, and of which the results are not yet. 
(We speak more fully in a subsequent lecture.) 

Truth is eternal, — not so the phases of human society 
in Europe, or elsewhere. They cannot be while of an 
abnormal type, and settled down on fictitious bases. 
Man has an inherent personality. The world sighs for 
freedom and intelligent self-control. Since writing the 
above, new signs have appeared in the horizon of Eu- 
rope. Poland has waked up, and some question of suc- 
cession in Prussian Denmark, is occasioning general 
concern, if not leading to a general war on the conti- 
nent. Hungary has shown increasing restlessness, and 
Napoleon has asked the aid of a common diplomacy in 
reconstructing the map of Europe, and assigning the 
terms of a general and permanent peace. The older 
dynasties are reluctant, and recusant respecting the 
measure, and yet cannot settle the question of descent 
in the little Duchies of Denmark, without substantially 
acceding to it, by a conference in London, of the great 
powers. This may inaugurate his principle, and open 
the way to its result. In the meantime the Czar has 
liberated the serfs of Poland and thereby quenched, 
most likely, the rebellion there. And Garibaldi is re- 
ceived with much favor in England, and will doubtless 
briing out his one absorbing idea, and object there of 
giving Italy to the Italians. The custody of Rome is 
becoming more and more an affliction and a grievance 



EUROPE AS CONTRASTED WITH AMERICA. 241 

to the French people, if not to their Emperor and the 
French Chamber, while Thiers, the historian, is criticis- 
ing with increasing freedom the measures of his gov- 
ernment. All is tending toward the vindication of the 
doctrine of popular rights. The next centre of inter- 
est in Europe will be nearer Venice and the Adriatic 
than the German Ocean, and when Hungary strikes 
again for freedom, we may expect the reconstruction of 
the maps of Europe on more resultant issues, and under 
a more recent diplomacy than that of the peace of 
Vienna in 1815. 



10 



242 FUTURE OF EMPIRE AMONG NATIONS. 



LECTURE X. 

PROGNOSIS OF THE FUTURE OF EMPIRE AMONG NATIONS. 

An estimate of the comparative growth and decad- 
ence of the sovereignties of the earth, so far as our 
weak vision can forecast the future, will be made up 
chiefly in the light of the historic developments of the 
different nationalities hitherto, that are to figure in it, 
— their status now, — the general designs of Providence, 
and the recorded -purposes of God. 

Distinct nations and races of men have peculiarities. 
This has been so from the earliest times. The sons of 
Noah were unlike each other, and had a unique history 
impressed on each by a positive Providence — " Cursed 
be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be." " Blessed 
be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his ser- 
vant." " God will enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell 
in the tents of Shem." This prophecy has met the eye 
of the student of history during the ages since. The 
sons of Japheth have been a dominant and indomitable 
race, inhabiting the more hardy and stringent latitudes 
toward the poles, while those of Shem have dwelt nearer 
the warmer tropics, and those of Ham chiefly under the 
enervating equator itself. Climate, habits of life, and 
forms of government, and varied history down through 
the progress of the centuries, have separated them so 
widely in features and characteristics, that some mere 



FUTURE OF EMPIRE AMONG NATIONS 243 

naturalists, as Agassiz and others, have thought them 
originally distinct. The lineaments of the past are in 
the present, and in calculating the forces and track of 
the future, we must take into consideration not the 
primeval prophecy merely, but the manifested idiosyn- 
crasies of the peoples and nations inhabiting the earth. 

Their present status, too, will be taken into the account. 
What are their relative position and advantages ? How 
are they hemmed in by seas and mountains, and how 
open to the expansions of commerce ? How are they 
affected by laws and governments and religions, and 
how elevated or depressed by the more or less advanced 
stage of a general or Christian civilization 1 

The general and leading design of Divine Providence 
must not be overlooked. " Righteousness exalteth a 
nation, and sin is a reproach unto any people." " Those 
that honor me," saith God, "I will honor, and those 
that despise me shall be lightly esteemed." God's 
methods are like himself. " His way is perfect." The 
great aim and scope of his dealings are to educate the 
race to intelligence, piety, and virtue. There is a mor- 
ality in the veiw of Providence — an end worthy of God 
in his dispensations to men and nations. To this end, 
" He setteth up one, and putteth down another." And 
then, too, he has recorded ultimate designs, a glorious 
resultant future for man, in the light of which we may 
estimate what shall be, and approximate the closing 
chapters of a history ever deepening in interest as it 
advances, and sure to issue in excelling glory to God, 
and success to all righteousness, and goodness, and 
truth. 



244 FUTURE OF EMPIRE AMONG NATIONS. 

The Saxon race, being the leading and dominant 
element of people in Great Britain and this country, are 
of Caucassian origin, and of ultimate descent from the 
loins of Japheth, and possess the characteristics which 
his history and the prophecy concerning him would in- 
dicate. They are a determined and intelligent and self- 
reliant race, — acquisitive, bold, and aspiring, — adven- 
turous, aggressive, and self-appropriating, — studious of 
the arts of war and of peace, — alive beyond almost any 
other people to the lust of conquest and jurisdiction, 
and yet ready to all industrial pursuits, and adapted to 
accumulations of business and trade. Says Guizot, 
(than whom a higher testimony could hardly be cited,) 
in the History of Civilization in Europe, — '"'The Ger- 
mans give us the materials of knowledge, the French 
systematize them, and the English put them to use." 
They are a practical, commercial people. Ideas are 
worth with them what they will sell for in market. 
The English are not distinguished as metaphysicians. 
They never gave a system in abstract truth. They may 
be erudite, but they are not philosophical. They have 
the composite, Greek mind, cumulative, practical and 
progressive, with just the characteristics for investiga- 
tion, adventure and success. 

The American offshoot and type of this Caucassian, 
Japhetic race, does not belie it. It has rather been 
reinvigorated by the transfer to this new field of its 
manifestation and progress. We have taken possession 
of a continent here almost in a day — have crowded out 
nearly all other nationalities, and are rapidly reducing 
the languages of the continent to our good mother 



B'UTUJRE OF EMPIRE AMONG NATIONS. 245 

English, and its soil to dominant Caucassian sway. The 
Spaniard is cowed on this continent, the French have 
sold out or surrendered what they did own here, so that 
those powers now only share some interest in the West 
India Islands, whilst all South America, peopled chiefly 
from the South of Europe, is quite too low in civilization 
to be of much account in the estimate of the future 
of nations. The present status and attitude of the great 
English race give it advantages for the time to come. 
We regard it now as a generic whole, and irrespective 
of the local governments under which it at present 
exists. The English speaking people, the Saxon race 
from the stock of Japheth, on either continent 
in Europe and America, I regard its present state 
as greatly indicative of its future progress and 
dominion among the nations. This race has now all 
the North of America to the Gulf of Mexico, and a 
large influence on all the governments and people South, 
to the Straits of Magellan, and a foothold at the Cape. 
The eastern Archipelago belongs largely to it, with a 
leading influence in China, Siam and India, — the whole 
peninsula there, and Ceylon and the Mauritius and other 
important points on the east and west coasts of Africa, 
and large possessions at the Cape of Good Hope, — all 
Australia, a continent in itself, and Gibralter and Malta 
and the Ionian Isles, and other salient points for use and 
jurisdiction, that have not been named. And this is a 
race that seldom gives up a point or yields its hold, and 
a map of the globe will show that it already has the key 
to a large share of the possessions and wealth of the 
world. This race is making rapid acquisitions too. We 



246 FUTURE OF EMPIRE AMONG NATIONS. 

have recently gained the Pacific coast, and England the 
whole of Australia, and is now exploring with much 
assiduity the interior, of as yet, unknown Africa, and 
will plant her trading posts and colonies there. 

Three things favor the future of the Saxon race— its 
intelligence, its commerce and industrial pursuits gener- 
ally, and its religion. These would guarantee the future 
prosperity of any people, and are especially elements 
of strength and durability in such a people. There are 
alternately cause and effect, and by their mutual action 
and reaction, will facilitate, if not secure, their growing 
greatness and ascendancy on the earth. Intelligence is 
a power in itself. It helps to bring man to his individ- 
uality, and to make the most of himself. He learns to 
think and act for himself, and to be a power in his own 
right. He reads and investigates, he plans and invents, 
and adds to the common stock of knowledge and to 
the compass of his own personal being. The individual 
and aggregate will of a people is thus increased, and its 
power for courage and conduct, and for all the arts 
of peace and of prowess in war. These on the whole 
are the most enlightened nations. They may not boast 
the greatest scholars, but have the most genera] intelli- 
gence. The masses have comparative elevation, and 
are being educated under governments, while most lean 
in the direction of civil freedom and the rights of man. 
In this is there an element of strength, of perpetuity 
and progress. 

This race, too, links itself by its commerce with all 
other nations and peoples on the globe. A maritime 
people is essentially an aggressive and a progressive one. 



FUTURE OF EMPIRE AMONG NATIONS. 247 

What was Venice, or, rather, what was she not, when 
she had the carrying trade of the Mediterranean ; or 
Portugal, after she discovered the way of the East ; or 
the Hanse towns, when the commerce of Europe was in 
their hands, and until a stronger than they demanded 
it ? The ascendancy of England is by her commerce 
coupled with her manufactures. Our American offshoot 
will have a share in this. This, she and all Europe 
already understands. The London Times of to-day, in 
advising Canada to take care of itself and assuring her 
that the mother country can not help her, says, " The 
United States is to be one of the greatest military and 
naval powers on the globe." (Christian Evangelical 
Journal.) This is true prophecy. Our present struggle 
will necessitate and secure it. And our commercial 
marine will more than keep pace with the arts of war. 
With our boundless country, and the science we bring 
into our agriculture, we must largely supply the work- 
shops of Europe, and be the granary of the world. 
The carrying trade to China and the Old World of the 
East, may be through this continent, and we become 
the highway of nations. That contemplated ship canal 
may be cut through the Isthmus, and our Pacific Rail 
Road may be so completed and be so capacious, as to 
ensure it. This would bring into near contiguity and 
open communication, Japan not only, and the mouth of 
the Amoor, with those vast regions of Russia bordering 
on it, but China an<J the East. So that, from this point 
of view, it would seem that a great and onward future 
is before the American element in the Saxon race. 
But religion is the greatest force in society, and will 



248 FUTURE OF EMPIRE AMONG NATIONS. 

be increasingly so "in the ages to come." If the whole 
of human thought lies in these three categories — the 
finite, the Infinite, and the relation between them, our 
greatest ideas, our most commanding progress and ut- 
most harmony with that great future before the race, as 
we hope, is in our relations to the Infinite, in the work- 
ing and guarantees of religion^ and its influence on men 
and nations. And in this respect the Saxon race are in 
advance of any other people. It has an open Bible, a 
free press, and the largest Christian literature. It has a 
faith most freed from the mummeries of a merely formal 
and legendary service, the most intelligent in itself and 
best adapted to enlighten, regenerate and purify the 
masses of society, — that takes the school house and the 
pulpit in its range, and elevates and ennobles the soul. 
It is aggressive, too. The protest-ant faith is a discipler 
of the nations. It has missions now among almost all 
people, and its advocates in the foreign field are attract- 
ing the notice of kings and the great ones of the earth, 
as foremost in the ranks of the benefactors of mankind. 
Thus this people is progressively falling into the wake 
of a redeeming Providence, and being made an engine 
of good and a factor in working out the problems of a 
future as indicated in the recorded assurances of the 
word of God. Hence the future of the Saxon race. 
We hope it may be in the vanguard in the great work 
of discipling the nations, and that it is thus for good 
reasons that the early prophecy was left us : " God shall 
enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of 
Shem." 

But other nations must share our regard in the esti- 



FUTURE OF EMPIRE AMONG NATIONS. 249 

mate we make. Those of Central Europe, in the light 
of the past and the present, must have a somewhat dis- 
tinguished future. Intelligence and freedom and true 
religion have taken root, and there are symptoms of 
growth and progress ; but Continental Europe is imped- 
ed and oppressed by two giant difficulties — oppression 
in civil government and in religious faith. Absolutism 
in Church and State render the condition of these na- 
tions an abnormal one. Truth and light, both in poli- 
tics and religion, will conflict with their present state. 
There is much in them that must be done away. In 
respect to some, rottenness has entered into their bones 
and the future will plead for reconstruction. Romanism 
is a foe to progress. The Pope is advised by an ecu- 
menical council at Rome to hold on unyieldingly to his 
former status, temporalities and all. Religion, as con- 
served by him, must come into conflict with the civil 
power, and there must be revolution and reconstruction 
on the continent. Romanism is the great impediment 
of progress there, as slavery is here. Both must disap- 
pear before the advancing light of the future. Free 
thought and the doctrines of a more intelligent faith 
will gain ascendancy in Europe, but the struggle will be 
prolonged and severe, and what new complications will 
enter into it, and what reconstructions occur, it may be 
difficult to foretell. Popery will not answer for the 
future, and refuses amendment, and must be written 
down as doomed. With it must go the civil corpora- 
tions that are dependent on it. Principles are stronger 
than men — yea, than kings and popes. Dynasties that 
have become old and worthless, must crumble before the 



250 FUTURE OF EMPIRE AMONG- NATIONS. 

car of progress. Ideas are slow in the public mind, but 
must have eventual sway. Reason and truth will get 
the victory, and Europe be redeemed from both her 
burdens. In this work it is fair to conclude that the 
nationalities the most intelligent and free, will take the 
lead, and we look to France, to Italy with her Alpine 
constitution, to Prussia and the German States for their 
contributions of influence, and yet it may be that the 
old empires of Central Europe will play but a secondary 
part in the great drama of the world's future, and be 
confined chiefly to the localites and the continent on 
which they are now situated. 

But another power is coming upon the stage. The 
empire of Russia is being developed from its semi-bar- 
baric state and is already one of the most considerable 
powers of Christendom and of the world. That race, 
too, is descended in the line of Japheth, in its dominant 
elements and characteristics. Russia rules over other 
tribes and away on the slopes of Asia, among Monguls 
and Tartars, it may be, but her indigenous people at 
home and the constituents of her strenodih are of the 
Slavic race. She has now larger possessions in Europe 
than any other power, besides holding all the North of 
Asia to the great wall of China, and to Japan. Her 
possessions on the Amoor river are a continent in them- 
selves almost, while she extends on eastward to Beh- 
ring's Straits, and embraces a large share of the north- 
west of our own continent. Russia, too, has large re- 
sources in her agricultural and mineral wealth. The 
precious stones of the world are found in her mountains 
and take their cut and finish from her lapidaries and ar- 



FUTURE OP EMPIRE AMONG NATIONS. 251 

tizans. She touches on the Baltic, the Black and Cas- 
pian Seas and the Pacific Ocean, and embosoms some 
of the largest rivers in the world. She has undisputed 
sway of the North or Polar Sea, and of whatever of 
benefit that may be. The Russians, too, are an active 
and enterprising people, bold, warlike, and determined 
race. They withstood the shock of the Crimean war, 
against the combined attack of Turkey and western Eu- 
rope, with wonderful firmness and sagacity. On the 
dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, which can be only a 
question of time, Russia must gain a foothold on the 
Levant, and obtain ready access for her products and 
commerce m all the ports of the Mediterranean and the 
south of Europe. She will, too, be a power in the east, 
and in antagonism or in concert with England and all 
her Caucassian family, be a competitor or compeer in all 
the products and wealth of Asia. 

Russia is the apostle of the Greek church. That 
faith is nearer the truth than the Roman. It is not so 
integrally embedded in paganism and image worship. 
It is more sound in doctrine, and less corrupt in rites 
and ceremonies, and may yield more easily, and be more 
easily conformed to the demands of the future in the 
Christian church. The Russian government is taking 
the lead of its people in the work of reform and pro- 
gress. This was the favorite policy of Nicholas, and is 
of the reigning Emperor. Serfdom is getting into dis- 
favor and desuetude. Conditions of freedom are given, 
and millions on millions on the great estates of the em- 
pire are elevated to the rights of humanity, and taught 
the lessons of liberty and law. The government of Rus- 



252 FUTURE OF EMPIRE AMONG NATIONS. 

sia, though absolute, is patriarchal and beneficent. The 
Czar seeks the culture and growth of his people, — their 
enlightenment, industrial wealth and prosperity, — and 
under his tutelage they are evidently gaining in all the 
arts of life, and in a measure of Christian civilization. 

That would seem to be one of the great powers of 
the future, to divide with its fellow in the Saxon line, 
the empire on earth, or as they may both be moulded 
by an overruling and beneficent Providence, lead the 
way of the Gentiles on to a more ultimate period, when 
" the desire of all nations shall come, and the kingdoms 
of the world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of 
His Christ.." 

Our forecast, however significant from fact and from 
the indices of the future, in the present must lose itself 
in the prophetic visions of the Bible. Those are clear 
on our pathway, and give light and hope for the " ages 
to come." A millennial period is in store for the fu- 
ture of the earth's history, and it is to be one of intelli- 
gence and virtue, — sin shall have had its day of mis- 
rule and worked out its problems of mischief and con- 
demnation and a brighter day shall ensue. Of this we 
are sure, whatever may be the human forces that shall 
be used for its coming. If those here indicated shall be 
sufficient to it they may lead, or otherwise may be re- 
solved into those that shall. But whatever may be the 
local or national agencies which shall be sanctified and 
employed to bring in that day, it assuredly lies in the 
reserve of history, and is approaching. As it is the 
remarkable issue in moral government, so is it signalized 
in Divine prophecy. And it will be a period of un- 



FUTURE OF EMPIRE AMONG NATIONS. 253 

wonted intellectuality, prosperity and peace. "For 
brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, 
and for wood, brass, and for stones, iron. I will also 
make thy officers peace, and thine exactors righteous- 
ness. Violence shall no more be heard therein; but 
thou shalt call thy walls salvation, and thy gates praise." 
And the day is coming that shall bring it. The forces 
are even now at work that shall avail for it. They are 
truth, conscience, and the God and Father of both. 
These are that three-fold cord which cannot be easily 
broken. These are in concert and coalition. These act 
together and strive prevailingly for this glad consum- 
mation. Truth is constantly in progress of develop- 
ment and manifestation. In physics and in morals is 
this the case, — in matter and spirit,— in science and re- 
ligion. And truth in its element is of God, and with 
Him, and for Him. Its progress is a help to all right- 
eousness. Sin and wrong are begotten of darkness, mis- 
take, and misconception. They must have less sway in 
the maturity of the world's intellect and observation. 
All sin may yet be held as an immorality among men 
and impenitence toward God, and disloyalty to Jesus 
be accounted an anomaly, a vice and a crime, like theft 
or murder, or any immorality now. Truth is the child 
of the skies, and the hand-maid of God. Its preval- 
ence is sin's detection and criticism. It is the increase 
of moral means to enlighten and sanctify. It unbur- 
dens the conscience, enlarges the vision, sharpens the 
intellect, and gives it reason for harmony with God. 
And this is the process now gradually passing over the 
face of the earth : in its early and unripe stages yet it 



254 FUTURE OF E3IPIXE AMONG- NATIONS. 

may be, but sure to culminate and be perfected. And 
it will under God usher in the reign of the Son of Man 
on earth. This process is an exceedingly rational one, 
as well as supernatural and divine. There are more 
helps for the check and cure of sin, than there were means 
for its prevention at first, and they are multiplying every 
day. All knowledge and fact and experience will 
strengthen them, and God will see them, and in His own 
divine sufficiency avail for the issue, and the empire of 
Christ be the ultimate and universal empire among men. 
His gospel is built in the first truths of reason, and is a 
revelation from the bosom of the infinite reason of God. 
It will bear the light of the latter day, it shall be the 
great factor of it, when the light of the moon shall be 
as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun seven- 
fold. False religions will die out in the light of the fu- 
ture ; superstitions go into desuetude, from the very in- 
telligence of the ages to come, and errors cease to ob- 
scure and mislead. The gospel will hold on and gain 
sway, because it is true and of Gocl, and become univer- 
sally the religion of men, in its purity and power. Then 
verily shall God dwell on earth by His Spirit, and its 
millennial state come. Prophecy will have its fulfill- 
ment, and the earth for a long succession of ages, be 
the abode of knowledge, righteousness, prosperity and 
peace. 



HIGHEST USEFULNESS. 255 



II. 

THREE LECTURES AT BELOIT COLLEGE. 



LECTURE I. 

HIGHEST USEFULNESS. 

There are two plans of life, which may be formed, in 
entering actively npon it : — one is to get good, and the 
other to do good, — the one to be happy, — the other to 
be useful, — the one to live to pleasure, and the gratifica- 
tion of the propensities and cravings of our animal and 
sentient nature, or even the aesthetic or intellectual of 
our being, and the other to live for society, and for 
God, in obedience to the high spiritual imperatives 
of the soul. 

The first is self-concentrative, and it has many ad- 
herents and admirers. " Many there be that cry, who 
will show us any good !" Self is its shrine of worship. 
Its votary lives to be happy, in some form. His end is 
self-gratification. He uses all else as a means to this, 
and puts a value on all things, according to their influ- 
ence on this. He subsidizes the universe, so far as he 
can, to his purpose, — yea, even the God of the universe, 
too. His self-respect becomes selfishness. He is for- 
getful of the claims of others, and the rights of a com- 



256 HIGHEST USEFULNESS. 

mon humanity, and the brotherhood of all as creatures 
of God, and the behests of virtue and piety. 

The other principle goes out of self, and finds its 
direct and main object in a sphere beyond it. It looks 
outward and away from self. It enters into communion 
with suffering, and spends itself on wants not its own. 
It is self-sacrificing — it seeks another's good. It is a 
helper and not a drone or disturber. It adds to the 
products of a common humanity, for the benefit of all. 
It is a producer, and not a mere consumer, and in the 
great object of life a worker together with God, whose 
central and significant name is " love" 

The adherent of the last, has the same individuality 
and sensibilities, as that of the first, but they are not his 
ruling law. His main activity is beyond them. They 
are incidental to his governing purpose, while in view 
of a world in guilt and wretchedness, and a God to 
glorify, he asks : " Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ?" 

This last plan of life has advantages, over the first, 
some of which I would briefly state : — 

1st. — It is larger. It spans a larger arch, — it takes in 
a wider field, — it is a faster purpose, and is in its nature 
a more sublime idea. The first is crippling and confin- 
ing. It narrows down the aspirations of the soul to a 
single object, and that comparatively small. There is 
compression in it. The other has expansion and en- 
largement. It puts us in correlation with a universe 
around, and with God who made it. It presents to the 
soul objects worthy of its best powers, and invites to 
this fullest development. We all know the power of a 
commanding purpose — the sway of a great idea. Such 



HIGHEST USEFULNESS. 257 

is the life long plan of doing good. It brings up the 
soul into a purer atmosphere, — feeds it on angels' food, 
and gives it volume and strength for all that is mora! 
and great and good in its being. 

For this, too, were we made. Each in an important 
sense is part of a whole— an integer, it is true, in him- 
self, but in connection and correspondence with all else. 
In the family, in the church, in society, — along the line 
of the race, what mutual dependence, — what social 
influences, — what combined results, and " whether one 
member suffer all the members suffer with it, or one 
member be honored all the members rejoice with it." 
The grand idea is that each is for all and all for God. 

Again, our second principle of action and plan of life 
is more modest than the first, — it is less self-pretentious 
and assuming — less belligerent and antagonistic, to the 
claims and rights of others. What would become of us 
and of society, should each draw himself off into a little 
kingdom by himself and care only for himself? This 
principle works bad enough in clans and states and 
kingdoms as now constituted by human policy and the 
depraved passions. Let it become universal, and the 
question everywhere be asked : " Am I my brother's 
keeper V and our state here would be intolerable and 
existence a curse. The exigencies in which we are 
placed compel us in some sort to be contributors to the 
general welfare, and demand it of us, that we live not 
in vain, and that we look not every man on his own 
things, but also on the things of others. 
17 



258 HIGHEST USEFULNESS. 

This, too, is benevolent. We have an innate conviction 
that benevolence is better than selfishness. We recog- 
nize it everywhere as a higher and holier principle. We 
have a veneration for the man who lays himself out for 
another s good, and spends himself in self-denying acts 
of kindness and philanthropy. What has given such 
sweetness to the name of Howard, or traced on the 
records of ail time, the act of her who poured the box 
of ointment on her Saviour's head ? Selfishness rough- 
ens the character — is dictatorial, and impervious, and 
unforgiving ; " charity sufTereth long and is kind, — 
vaunt eth not itself, — is not puffed up, — is not easily 
provoked, — thinketh no evil." What a world would this 
be, did the law of kindness, beneficence and love, obtain 
universally in it, and were our race brought up to the 
high elevation of that charity which seeketh not her 
own. This is the Bible idea of a perfected humanity, 
and this do we anticipate in the ages to come. 

And then again it is God-like, " For God is love," and 
we ought, and it is our highest excellence to live on the 
same principles that He does and to the same ends. 
Intelligence is the same element of living in the finite 
as in the infinite. " Be ye perfect even as your Father 
in Heaven is perfect." Christ was the embodiment and 
manifestation of the Deity in human flesh, and he was 
cur pattern too. His mission on earth was a mission of 
love. His life, his death, his doctrine, his work, — oh ! 
what a divine charity pervaded all — what love through 
all His accents ran — how unselfish — how He offered 
Himself a sacrifice for us, and yet he is set forth as our 
example, that we should walk in his steps. 



HIGHEST USEFULNESS. 259 

" How • charming is divine philosophy — 
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, 
But musical as Apollo's lute : 
A continued feast of nectared sweets, 
Where no crude surfeit reigns." 

And then, this method secures all the really valuable ends 
arrived at in the first, in a better manner and in a higher 
degree than that does. " He that loseth his life shall 
find it." What a paradox, and yet literally, securely, 
gloriously true. Great sacrifices lead to great rewards — 
the unselfish man has the most comforts. Which is the 
most happy child, think you, the one that yields itself 
in ever kindly ministrations to others and would make 
all happy about it, or that which is selfish and exacting 
— the one that must be ever-fed with sugar-plums, and 
supplied with toys, or the dne that goes out with alacri- 
ty, on missions of love to others ? 

Here is the source of the deep and rich satisfaction of 
the good man. 

What could have tempted Howard from his labors 
of love ? The wealth of the Indies could not drain the 
resources of comfort in the mind of the Apostle to the 
Gentiles. The world could not buy it. In my soul, I 
believe that the self-denying man or woman of God, 
who takes his life in his hand, and gives himself to a 
mission of love, to distant and untutored heathen, often 
enjoys more in this life than falls to the lot of other 
men — has a higher satisfaction — a cup more running- 
over with blessings fuller of divine comforts that feast 
the soul and add no sorrow. 

And then, lastly : — This is the way of the conscience. 



260 HIGHEST USEFULNESS. 

We know that thus we ought to do ; that this is our 
true expression as those made in the image of God. 
We are dissatisfied with ourselves without this. An 
inward monitor upbraids us, and life is often rendered a 
burden by the mere stupidity and selfishness and un- 
profitableness thereof. Conscience dictates to activity 
and duty. The imperatives of the soul call upon us, 
to be like our Father in Heaven, who causes " the sun 
to shine, on the evil and the good, and sends his rain 
upon the just and the unjust." And we do not arrive 
at the true prerogatives and behest of man, as an intel- 
ligent and responsible being after a divine likeness, till 
we conceive of him in a sphere of labor and usefulness 
in the cause of God and his fellow man, — we do not 
get at his utmost development or truest end, till we find 
him a devotee of truth, and righteousness, and goodness, 
in their own rights and for their own sake. 

But I have an object in presenting these thoughts to 
you now. The theatre of active life is yet before you, 
and you are in the work of preparation for it. The 
grand decision it may be is yet to be made. I would 
have you make it with intelligence and discretion. The 
time is opportune. It is a plan for life — for all the 
future. In after life a new and general direction is not 
so easily taken. One settles down somewhere and 
somehow at random and haphazard, if not otherwise, 
and then the exigencies and manner of life are imposed 
upon him very much, whether he will or no. He has 
fallen into the nets that he can not get out of. He can 
only plod on in the sphere where he is, however humble 
and diminutive. He is encased in his circumstances, 



HIGHEST USEFULNESS. 261 

and he can not break the shell that encloses him, but 
must pass on to his grave, filling only the little sphere, 
and moving in the small circle in which previous life 
has placed him. But you are at the entrance of the 
paths. You can covet the best gifts — you can obey and 
follow the noblest aspirations of the soul, and lay your 
plans for life, so as to become the benefactors of man, 
on the scale of the highest usefulness, and in enlarged 
spheres, and with aims that shall meet the divine ap- 
proval, and be in honor, and praise, and gratitude at 
last. You may select on the one principle I have named, 
and you may on the other. Hence the suggestion I 
make. 

Everyone is bound to get a living by that which does 
not hurt. But mere negative virtue does not satisfy. 
To be drones will not? do. Our inward selves, and all 
exterior relations revolt, and again I say in the language 
of another, "shoot the arrow high." "Expect great 
things, and, in God's name, attempt them." Society 
has claims on us, and the age too, and so has all the 
future." " No man liveth to himself, and no man dieth 
to himself" We have domestic and social relations 
and responsibilities — a country to serve— a world to 
save, as workers together with God, and a God to 
glorify. 

These claims radiate in all directions. There is the 
cause of humanity and virtue, and we may become 
Howard-like in our direction of effort. The cause of 
literature and science and the world, needs to be filled 
with a substantial and well-poised Christian literature, 
for the training of the present and all future time — 



262 HIGHEST USEFULNESS. 

every art and every science to be wrought into higher 
embellishment, and carried on to higher perfection — the 
cause of legislation, and all the great civil interests 
of the State and of the world. We want large-hearted 
and sound and honest-minded men at the bar and on 
the bench, and in the halls of legislation, and in all the 
commerce and business of ordinary life ; and then we 
want men of science and skill, and thorough discipline 
and training for the cure of the body and the cure of the 
soul. I dwell a little on this last. What an amount of 
men and talent is needed to supply the world with Gos- 
pel ministers 1 Look over Christendom — over heathen- 
dom. This profession is doubtless the least supplied, 
and the most in want, of any. A friend, whose engage- 
ments led him to investigate the subject, states that in 
the Congregational and Presbyterian denominations in 
this country, there are now fourteen hundred vacancies, 
where congregations are actually formed, and churches 
planted; and some of them among the largest and 
most important in the land. It may be thought that 
this profession does not pay well. In simple dollars 
and cents this may be true, sometimes, and yet I think 
it is coming to be more appreciated by all classes of the 
community. But here is the principle : — " He that 
loseth his life shall find it ;" and still more significantly 
by the Saviour in another place : — " He that loseth his 
life for my sake and the Gospel's, shall find it unto life 
eternal." Yet this calling, when truly and benevolently 
chosen, and the mind and life consecrated to it, is not 
without its comforts and joys, and its ministration of 
that to the human spirit, which is far above all that this 



HIGHEST USEFULNESS. 263 

world can give. And God can make his own divine 
sufficiency bear benignly on it, and does. It has study 
and thought, and mental and spiritual development in 
its prosecution. It is conversant with the highest truth, 
with that respecting God, and the relations of God to 
man and of man to God. Daniel Webster was univer- 
sally esteemed a great man ; but in what lay his 
strength $ In his early Christian training, in his Bible 
education, in the religious element of his early life, in 
being conversant with the great and the good in the 
ideas of God and religion, which he never forgot. 
There is then intellectuality in this calling. It has, too, 
sympathy with man and God, and enters up eminently 
into angelic sympathies. It is something to be about 
that which God has commanded, and which needs to be 
done ; to be in the direct line of God's redeeming 
providence, and to have life consecrated to the great end, 
which fills the heart of Infinite love. " Go ye into all 
the world," &c. Other professions have their value, 
and we may follow them and serve God too. Good 
men are wanted everywhere, and the question of adap- 
tation comes fairly in. But let life be a work on the 
best models and the highest principles. In such a 
world and such an age, and with prophecies and promi- 
ses and commands before you, weigh well the course 
you take, — aim high, be the men we want. Live to 
purposes that will bear a final investigation and stand 
approved when all the blest get home. 



!64 SELF-CONTROL: OR, SELF-GOVERNMENT. 



LECTURE II. 

SELF-CONTROL ; OR, SELF-GOVERNMENT. 

Man has an individuality of being. Like all else, in 
organized existence, he is an integer in himself. He may 
have relations to all else, but he is a complete unity in 
his own proper being. He is an entire, unique, indi- 
viduated personality in and of himself. He comes forth 
into life, a separate, distinct, completed unity ; he passes 
such over life's theatre, and such he goes down to the 
grave, and enters the dark valley. He dies alone. Xo 
one beside can live for him or die for him. He is him- 
self, in his own proper oneness and individuality, and 
will always be so. Having begun to be, he will never 
cease to be. Henceforth his future will be commensu- 
rate with the years of God, in the living, conscious, dis- 
tinct, personal individuality of his being. 

Man is a responsible being. He has duties to discharge 
and moral relations to sustain, in his own proper per- 
sonality. The question of obligation attaches to him. 
This is a doctrine of consciousness. He feels bound to 
be, and do this, and not that. It is indeed impossible, 
that a being so constituted, with intellect, susceptibility 
and will, should not be responsible. The doctrine of law 
applies to him, — the sentiment of accountability he feels 
in himself and accredits and respects it in his fellow. It 
•is imposed upon him by an inward law, by his outward 



self-control; or, self-government. 265 

condition. It is matter of consciousness and of divine 
revelation. 

But in order to accountability, there must be in us 
the element of self-control and self-government. In the 
on-going of physical nature, there is no responsibility : 
in the growth of the plant, or the movements of sentient 
animal life. There must be in man a higher style of 
life. He rises up out of the physical into the mora] 
sphere. He must have power to know himself, to rec- 
ognize his relations to law, and the whole matter of ob- 
ligation and duty, with power to choose the right, and 
refuse the wrong. At the point where responsibility 
lies, there must be in him a sovereignty of election, as to 
the path he will take, — as to the way he will turn, — as 
to the choice he will make, and the voluntary course he 
will pursue. This is a province which, in its actual en- 
actment and issuing, is wholly his own, lies within him- 
self, and is in and of his own power, and the act in it is 
properly a creation of his own as cause. He does it, 
and no other being does. It is in the sanctuary of his 
own individual being and life, and. responsibility. He 
loves — he hates — he repents — he believes — he obeys or 
disobeys — accepts or refuses — yields to truth, duty and. 
right, or rejects it — chooses life or death. Influences 
may lie in his pathway — yea, a universe of motive may 
crowd around and press upon him, yet here is a sover- 
eignty all his own. He can comply or not comply, — he 
can choose the good, or the evil, — under the responsi- 
bilities to which conscience and truth and duty and God 
hold him, as a free, moral agent ; he can choose light or 
darkness, — yield to the right, or hold out in the wrong. 



266 self-control; or, self-government. 

— resist or submit — fall freely and with all his heart into 
the right relations of his being, or maintain a warfare 
on them. It is not my design to be too serious, here, 
although the subject has its practical bearings on the 
great subject of religion and the life of the soul. I 
state rather its elemental, metaphysical ground. No one 
is ever placed where he cannot do right, or where the 
election of his voluntary state and course is not essen- 
tially and properly his own, and in his own power. 

And it is enough to say that this is the nature of the 
intelligence ; this is of our essential being as those made 
in the image of God. We should not be intelligent, 
rational beings in the likeness of God without this. 
We may say it with reverence, but the most High could 
not make us in that likeness without giving us this at- 
tribute ; gud if God is perfect, then the intelligence of 
man is in itself a perfect work, and the moral sphere, in 
its right and proper on-going, the highest possible sphere 
of being and a perfect one. God has made us so, and 
in this, has made us as only we could be, and be intelli- 
gent beings, endowed with a mind, in correspondence 
with Him and like Him. 

And this is a doctrine of consciousness. We have the 
conviction of just this element in our being. ~No one 
was ever tempted to do wrong, without the conviction 
that he need not comply with the temptation, — that he 
can decline its suggestion, and withhold compliance. No 
one ever sinned, without feeling that he need not, and 
ought not, — and that he had power in the premises to 
have refused the wrong, and maintained his integrity as 



OR, SELF-GOVERNMENT. 267 

a righteous being. No one ever felt obliged to do 
wrong. The dictates of reason, and the facts of con- 
sciousness agree in this, and give in their teachings a 
legitimate accountability here, in the jurisdiction which 
we have, over our voluntary States, and the putting forth 
of our acts of will in the right or wrong direction in 
obedience to the word and will of God, and in accord- 
ance with all truth and righteousness, or their opposite. 
Hence the sense of guilt and shame and remorse, when 
we do wrong, — the self-reproach and self-condemnation 
attendant on the commission of sin, and on a life and 
course of transgression. We are unsustained in it, by 
our own minds, and in our own reflections. We up- 
braid ourselves and say, — "How came we to do so L ? 
Why did we so depart from the right, and commit in- 
iquity and sin against God, when an open course lay be- 
fore us in obedience to his commands, and in compli- 
ance with the claims of reason and our own spiritual 
being f 

Hence sin is wont to be timid, and unself-reliant. 
Men steal in the dark. "The adulterer walketh forth 
in the twilight and disguiseth his face." Wrong action 
is ftJl of subterfuges, — innuendos, — clap-traps, — double- 
dealing, and tergiversation, and attempts to give false 
coloring to it and to justify it at the bar of reason and 
conscience. All men are ashamed of it. None will de- 
fend it, in its simple and undisguised nature and enor- 
mity. It is foreign to the legitimate and normal action 
of the intelligence, — hence, evasions and excuses, and 
pretenses and prevarication about it ; and hence the Ian- 



268 SELF-CONTROL ; OK, SELF-GOVERNMENT. 

guage of that prince of English dramatists — " 'tis con- 
science does make cowards of us all." 

" The thief doth esteem each hush an officer." And 
the Bible has said, "The wicked flee when no man pur- 
sueth, but the righteous are bold as a lion." 

But enough at this point, and the suggestion is here 
in place that as this sovereignty of election is in us, and 
this absolute power of determining our voluntary states 
and conduct, so is it no where else : — it is in the custo- 
dy of no' other being. Others may influence, — may 
seek out occasions, and present considerations, but they 
cannot determine the action we take, — they cannot en- 
ter into our minds, — take up our personality, and enact 
our action in the premises. This indeed is not the pro- 
vince of the Infinite one. God does not repent for us, — 
or love, or hate, or submit, or exercise, or take upon 
himself our personality or assume our responsibility. 
There is a sphere there which is ours and not His, — it is 
that of compliance with duty and right and resistance 
of wrong. His control here is mediate and instrument- 
al. The act is ours and the election and sovereignty 
over it, whether we will do it or not, is ours, and on a 
responsibility which we cannot shake off. Hence, the 
economy of means in God's moral kingdom ; — the ex- 
hortations He uses, the instructions He gives, the com- 
minations He makes, and the forbearance He shows, — 
the doctrine of rewards and punishments, and a 'state of 
actual retribution, where probation and its appropriate 
grounds of action and its moral economy is exhausted — 
into which enters the element of physical power. It is 



self-control; or, self-government. 269 

the physical condition of the lost, that is subject to God 
and His control, and not the state of their hearts. 

And this is just the responsibility that lies inherently 
in us and is of our essential being as those made in the 
likeness of God. It is just that which is imposed upon 
us by God himself, and by all the relations and facts of 
existence ; and it is just that from which we can never 
screen ourselves and which we can never evade. It is 
on us wherever we go, and wherever we are. No more 
can we flee from it than from the presence of God, — no 
more can we escape it than we can the destinies of that 
eternity which awaits the action we take and the course 
we pursue. Here is the pivot of that destiny, — the cen- 
tral element of that personal being, which God has 
given us for good and not evil, — for right and not 
wrong, — for vindication and justification, and honor and 
glory; — and not for dishonor, and condemnation, and 
woe. 

And it is well to be possessed of this characteristic of 
mind, — of ourselves indeed, and personal being, in its 
scientific relations, as well as in its practical bearings on 
us in our life, conduct and character. It is well to rec- 
ognize it as the seat, — the ultimate ground of the per- 
sonality, — that which more than anything else consti- 
tutes the personal me — the /, my self, — and gives to us 
the responsibilities of an intelligent existence. It is of 
value to us now, — it is of value for the future. It is so 
in respect to ourselves and our separate estate, allot- 
ments and destiny, — it is so in our relations with others, 
in all the associations and intercourse of life. As this 
is the centre of our personal self, and that on which the 



270 self-control; or, self-government. 

image of God is traced, and which puts us in corres- 
pondence with, and makes us like Him, so can it be the 
highest privilege of our being. It is written — " Be ye 
holy for I am holy." Man and angel can be righteous, 
as God is righteous, and holy as God is holy. We need 
not lose our birthright. We need not fail of the great 
end of our being, and sink to the level of the herds of 
the stall, and below them, while God calls us to glory 
and virtue ; and since our race has lapsed into sin, this 
personal prerogative is not lost; and we have many 
helps to regain the light, the good and the true. God 
has come down to us ; redemption is preached through 
the great atonement, and we are called to glory and vir- 
tue in Jesus Christ. 

The seat of the struggle is located between the pas- 
sions and the conscience, — between the lower and the 
higher nature or sphere of being, — between the appe- 
tites of the flesh, and the imperatives of the spirit, — be- 
tween the impulses and cravings of the animal nature, 
and the efforts of sinful habit and propensity, on the 
one hand, to bring down the soul in subjection, in the 
end of selfish gratification and sinister and depraved in- 
dulgence ; and the spiritual convictions of our constitu- 
ent being as made in the image of God, on the other. 
The Apostle graphically characterizes the two, by call- 
ing them, " The law in the members, and the law in the 
mind; and affectingiy describes the war between them. 
May I quote a verse or two : — " I find then a law that 
when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I 
delight in the law of God, after the inward man, but I 
see another law in my members warring against the law 



self-control; or, self-government. 27.1 

of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law 
of sin which is in my members " Yes, here is the field 
of strife, — the battle-ground of the giant elements of 
our moral being, — the struggle, the conflict, and the vic- 
tory, on either hand, is here, and here the great ques- 
tions of destiny and the soul are decided, and decided 
forever. It is well, then, to concentrate attention at this 
point, — to summon our highest energies here, and bring 
to our aid, in behalf of the right, the God-like and the 
true, all the helps that the case admits of. 

In this contest, reason, conscience, and the impera- 
tives of the soul, are in the right. They claim prece- 
dence, and should have it. Conscience is of right the 
ruling element in us, and should have the sway there. 
Hers is of right the supremacy and the jurisdiction, and 
she will never yield her claim, and whenever we foolish- 
ly or wickedly throw the reign on the neck of the pas- 
sions, and trample on the dictates of conscience, and 
turn a deaf ear to her remonstrances, and lay in the dust 
these spiritual imperatives of the soul, it will assuredly 
be to our cost. Sooner or later that conscience will rise 
again from the dishonor we have heaped upon it, and if 
we continue to refuse her rights and reject her counsels, 
will continually sting us with self-reproach and remorse, 
and in some world beget in our inmost souls the an- 
guish of the "worm that never dies." 

On all moral questions then — in the whole sphere 
of duty and righteousness, follow conscience. Go for 
the right, and go at once without hesitation or doubt. 
Obey the promptings of this spiritual monitor within. 
Seek the truth from all sources open to you, and con- 



272 self-control; ok, self-government. 

scientiously act upon it, and govern yourselves accord- 
ingly. Keep under the body, as St. Paul strikingly ex- 
presses it, and let the suggestions of the flesh and the 
appetites and propensions of the law in the members be 
in obedience to the higher law of the soul. In the 
whole sphere of our moral and responsible being, let 
God and conscience be our watchword, and command 
from us, implicit obedience and trust. Then it is that 
we truly come up into the spiritual of our being, and 
gain in fellowship' with the Divine our being's true end ; 
and it is some encouragement to know that this we can 
do, and that we have many helps thereto, from God 
above, and from those spiritual inspirations within, which 
are God-sends in our own bosoms. We have a destiny 
to grapple with and we must meet its issue ; we may 
have lost something by delay and irresolution, but the 
ocean of truth lies on the side of right — the grounds 
of moral action are all there. There are all the good 
influences in the universe — there is the helping hand 
of heaven and of good men on earth. Follow there — 
follow implicitly, cordially, penitently, courageously and 
confidently in God, and truly in submission to the de- 
mands of your responsible and immortal being ; yes, 
follow there, and you shall find it to be life and peace 
to your soul. 



SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. 273 



LECTURE III. 

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. 

Two principles lie at the basis of morals, and of all 
the reciprocal duties of life : — self-respect and mutual 
respect, with these correlates — that of supreme respect 
and reverence for God, in which lies the germ of all 
worship and religion. These are comprehensive of the 
moral sphere, and take up all the relations of moral 
truth. A man may — yea, he must respect himself, for 
he is made in his constituent being, in the image of God, 
He has that intelligence which puts him in correspon- 
dence with God, and through which he enters into 
communion and fellowship with all that is pure and 
lovely in moral being, — -and he should do nothing to 
debase his heavenly birth, and mar his alliance with the 
pure and the true and the right, — nothing as a race or 
as an individual, — and when he does, the discontent, the 
shame, the self-reproach and humiliation, which are con- 
sequent upon his sin and his self-wrong, and which are 
appropriate to him then, are but the working of this 
element of self-respect, the sense of what is due to him- 
self, in its application to one in these circumstances. 
The idea of what God has made us as rational agents— 
as spiritual beings, bound to reflect his image and to be 
unto glory and virtue enters into the very woof of our 
humanity. We cannot get away from it, nor should we 
18 



274 SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. 

try. It is the safe-guard of virtue, the life-boat of the 
30ul. It is integrally in the effort for recovery, when 
we have fallen into wrong, in that sense of the right 
and the ought in our being, when we are tempted to go 
astray, and which leads us to exclaim, "How shall I do 
this great wickedness and sin against God." 

Kindred to this is the sentiment of respect for others. 
We transfer, as it were, our being to them. They are 
specimens of the same common humanity with ourselves, 
sustaining like relations to God and all else. The prin- 
ciple of relf-respect becomes mutual or social respect 
when transferred to them, a bond that stretches over the 
whole sphere of intelligence as graduated in the scale 
of moral being. 

Though in our proper selves we are individuated, we 
have relations to others. This community of being begets 
them — this common origin, and this mutual dependence, 
our common sympathies, and wants and destinies, — our 
mingled circumstances, — the ills that betide us, and the 
one great law of providence that is on us. 

Relations beget duties. The doctrine of obligation 
runs through the whole sphere of our relations to them. 
We carry over our moral being into it, and live again 
and reenact our proper personality in these 

. As related to others, we are sources of influence on them. 
Moral action has its conditions. Its foreground is in 
the intellect and the sensibility. To act intelligently 
and responsibly, we must act in view of something we 
know and feel. These sources and conditions of action 



SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. 275 

may be supplied by each other. Mind acts on mind. 
Man, in a thousand ways, influences his fellow. Though 
distinctive our individuality, we are social in our posi- 
tion and influence. 

It is true, that the influence of man on his fellow, is 
in its nature resistible. The subject of it may resist it, 
and when wrong he should. He is not under the 
necessity of yielding to it. If in the wrong direction, 
he can, through the spiritual imperatives of his own 
soul, hold on to his integrity, and not abase himself by 
these contaminations from without, or from his inter- 
course with his fellow men. Still they are influences, 
and they act as such. They appeal to the voluntary in 
us. They plead for indulgence. Circumstances may 
give them great weight. They may come from a quar- 
ter entitled to respect — they may fall in with indulged 
habit and propensity — they may fan the flame of cher- 
ished desire, and lift the soul upon the wing of the 
passions. The law of influence on each other is mani- 
fold and wide spread. It is like attraction in the phy- 
sical sphere. It forms the very net-work of society. 
It is like an enveloping atmosphere. It is everywhere 
with its thousand voices, and methods of access to the 
mind for good or evil. 

We are responsible for our influence on others. It is a 
voluntary state. It is a power under our control. It 
can be one thing, and it can be another ; and we are 
responsible for having it what it should be, and for not 
having it what it should not be. 

Influence is exerted in various ways. It springs up 



276 SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. 

from all the relations of life. The parent influences his 
child — the young each other: comrades and friends 
feel the enchantments of this mutual attraction, and find 
their course in life much deflected and shaped by its 
conditionating influence. Example is a source of in- 
fluence. Human nature is plastic in its character. It 
is so especially among the young. " One sinner de- 
stroyeth much good." This example may be as the 
pestilence, or the sirocco of the desert. Our example 
may do hurt when we are not directly intending it, and 
when we least expect it. There is a kind of unconscious 
tuition which every one gives off constantly, and which 
may be for good or evil. And then, how much of direct 
effort do we make to influence others. The heart is a 
fountain of influences. We seek to bear others along in 
the way of our own hearts. We take pains often. The 
vicious youth would have companions ; the thoughtless 
one, admirers. Habits have a tendency to propagate 
themselves. We naturally seek to bring others to our 
own level. " Evil communications corrupt good man- 
ners." There is the companionship of iniquity, and 
while it is true that " evil men and seducers wax worse 
and worse," it is also true, that they draw others in 
their train to death. Hence the counsel of the wise 
man : — " My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou 
not." 

We give forth influences by look and gesture — by the 
words we utter, and the actions we perform — by the 
general purpose and conduct and aim of life, and by the 
minute development of every day and hour and mo- 
ment — by the designs we entertain, the plans we pur- 



SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. 277 

sue, and by our real character. Eveiy man is a mirror 
to reflect himself; and every one does mainly show his 
real self, whatever disguises he may put on, and what- 
ever deception he may practice. In this respect then, 
we are responsible to be what we should be. We 
really have no right to be found in the ranks of sin and 
wrong. Our example is an injury — our position a false 
light — our very self then a lure in the wrong direction. 
But I would make the hints of the occasion some- 
what more appropriate. I observe before me a collec- 
tion of young men and youth, associated in the daily 
intercourse and business of life. You must have a large 
influence on each other, and do much for each others 
conduct and character— for each others' welfare and 
harm. Other men are comparatively insulated from 
each other, to what you are. You have a community 
of pursuits — you dwell much in the society of each 
other. You are in the unformed and plastic period 
of youth — in the hey-day of the passions. It is spring 
time with you : the soil is vigorous : any plant will 
grow there. You are unsuspecting — incautious, per- 
haps, and social, too, from the very exuberance and 
prodigality of nature. It is with you the forming time 
for all the future. In far distant years you will refer to 
it ; in other worlds, perhaps, as the period where great 
interests were settled — when character was decided and 
destiny fixed. And you will allow me to ask, is your 
influence on each other and over each other what it 
should be, and all it should be f In a community so 
interesting, and in the midst of issues so absorbing, and 
I may add, so sacred, too, are you all you can be for the 



278 SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. 

common good of all, and do you watch with some solic- 
itude the contributions which you individually make in 
this behalf ? But we descend from this general inquiry, 
and from the religious idea contained in it, and contem- 
plate a little more in detail the matter of social respon- 
sibility as here applied. 

1st. — As students. There are social responsibilities in 
reference to the main design for which you are sent, and 
for which you are here. You must not hinder, but help 
each other. I do not mean that you must get each 
others tasks, or eke out their poor scholarship, or shelter 
their responsibility. This would but hinder them in the 
end and not help. But you are bound to be true and 
faithful students — to make a full and proper use of the 
powers you have — of both time and talents, in the ac- 
quisition of knowledge, in the discipline of mind, — in 
attaining those sciences, and getting the mastery of 
those studies and subjects of thought which lie in your 
course. Tou are bound to do this for each others' sake, 
and not to be in each others' way. Each should be for 
the encouragement of all — should bring a buoyant and 
manly heart to every study, and a persistent will and a 
determined resolution, to meet steadily and from day to 
day, the requisitions of college life. No one should be 
a drone in the class-room, or hang heavily on the skirts 
of his fellows, or exhaust the time and patience of his 
teacher, because he would not apply himself and be 
ready for his task. The question of social responsibility 
enters in this way into the whole curriculum of study. 
The indolent, unfaithful and negligent scholar, is a 
hindrance all the way. Other principles enter in as a 



SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. 279 

stimulus to good scholarship : to the wise improvement 
of time, and the best application of our powers in the 
educational process ; but I speak of this now. It is de- 
manded by the law of relationship to others. We 
should be mutual helpers along the paths of science ; 
should encourage each other up the hill, and in our place 
and turn, and from point to point evince the feasibility 
and successes of the way. This, indeed, may be not a 
justifiable emulation only, but become a holy ardor 
even, almost a sacred, a divine enthusiasm. It may be 
converted into a channel of usefulness and be among 
the methods of filling up the measure of duty to God 
and our fellow men. And the suggestion here made 
may have a wide scope. It may be taken into all the 
relations of college life, and spread itself over the whole 
sphere of obligation in this regard, — punctuality and 
promptness, to the appointments of the class-room, the 
chapel, the teacher, the faculty, — the observance of the 
laws and regulations of colleges, and the design for 
which the whole are instituted. Be ye examples of this, 
and thus be mutual contributors to each others' advance- 
ment, and eventually good and glad success in the high 
end of your common association. 

2d. — General Deportment. I think we are bound to be 
gentlemen, in the presence of each other. It was sai$ 
of a distinguished French author, that he could not do 
well at his writing desk, unless he was in complete dress 
for the assembly room or the evening party. And if a 
careless habit makes a dull pen, and one's own thoughts 
take the hue and feel the neglect of his person and 
appearance, how much more should the hint be im- 



280 SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. 

proved in the society of each other, and be regarded in 
all the intercourse and incidental relations of life. The 
remark goes to the point of general manners, of good 
behaviour, and befitting and proper deportment, in 
these constantly recurring companionships. Much of 
that unconscious tuition, of which I spoke, lies along 
these channels, and that atmosphere of mutual influences 
which envelop us ; and the principle to be brought over 
it, and which is to permeate as an energizing vitality, is 
that of kindness and mutual respect. This is the law 
of these relationships. It will harmonize them and 
bring mutual edification and comfort and honor and 
blessing along our pathway in them. We might insti- 
tute examples of the good and the poor student ; of the 
good and the bad youth or young man ; of the pure 
and genial influence of the one : his kindness ; his re- 
spect ; his common regard for the rights and good of all ; 
and the corrupting demoralization and generally depress- 
ing influence and discouragement attendant on the 
course of the other. But this I need not do. Enough 
already in these directions of the subject, and I recollect 
that you are here but for a time, — soon to go forth into 
the world, — some of you very soon, and to enter into 
other relations, and encounter new temptations and 
trials, and under far other circumstances to fight the 
battle of life. Oh that you might all go out hence 
under the baptism of the Spirit, and as the freed-men 
of the Lord ! It is also our life's future, that the doc- 
trine of social responsibility subtends, and it is that future 
which swells the value of it here. How much college- 
life will lay its programme and indicate its filling up. 



SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. 281 

That youth made bad, through your example, may be 
undone for life and go to his grave a wreck and an out- 
cast. In an evil hour you tempted him to sin ; you set 
before him the lure of your example and your influence, 
and he yielded, and you afterward led him as with cart 
ropes, and rivited him as with chains, to the Moloch at 
whose shrine you immolated him. " Facilis est decensus 
averni." Beware of the influences which you send out 
in that direction. Do you ask, in relief, "Am I my 
brother's keeper ?" Yes, in an important sense you are, 
and God will hold you so ; and then, think of the con- 
verse of the picture here drawn, and what your consist- 
ent Christian walk and example will do. Your kindly 
efforts ; your seasonable counsel and entreaty ; your 
faithful love and prayer. Oh, it may be like the pre- 
cious ointment poured upon the head of Aaron, which 
ran down upon his beard and spread over all his gar- 
ments ; or like the dew that descended on the moun- 
tains of Zion, where the Lord commanded His blessing. 
And I do not forget here, ^hat there is another life than 
this, and I would have all these pupils prepared against 
it. I would have them enter into that life, and be com- 
panions of the good and the blest forever. And I 
think how much this spot and these scenes will do for 
that — these associations; these companionships; these 
bonds. " Verily, if a man sin and one convert him, let 
him know that he which converteth the sinner from the 
error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall 
hide a multitude of sins ;" and who would not be saved 
through such kindly agencies and instrumentalities, and 
sweetly swing round by the imperatives of his own will 



282 SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. 

to the moorings of truth and right and God, and be 
won over to the embraces of Christian love : who would 
be left out from such a communion, and be exiled from 
the blessedness of such fellowship and such a hope ? 



THE WAT OF SALVATION. 283 



III. 

TWO DISCOURSES. 



I. 

THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

The circumstances under which the following dis- 
course was prepared, throw around it peculiar interest. 
It was on the eve of the writer's departure for Europe, 
in feeble health, and with the impression deeply fixed 
in his mind that his earthly labors for Christ were ere 
long to come to an end. And before he left his home 
he desired to prepare and deliver, what seemed to him 
might be a last farewell message, to the congregation 
of which for many years he had been a member, in 
which discourse he might embody all that he deemed 
essential to be known and practiced for the attainment 
of salvation. It is here introduced, besides the dis- 
course that follows, not only for the solidity and value 
of the thoughts which it contains, but also as a speci- 
men of the productions of Dr. Squier in the character 
of a Preacher of the Gospel. 



Acts 16: 30. "Sirs, what must I do, to be saved?" 
This is a very vital question. It is a far reaching 



284 THE WAT OF SALVATION. 

inquiry. It strikes deep into the elements of our being 
and our hopes. Its scope is over the present and the 
future. It goes to the adjustment of our relations to 
God and eternity. The salvation it involves is the sal- 
vation of the soul : — a salvation from sin, and death and 
condemnation, — an admission in to the perfection and 
blessedness of the heavenly state, and a home and a rest 
there, from the cares and toils and wrongs and wretched- 
ness of our pilgrimage here. It is a deliverance from 
the curse of the law due to sin, — from the penalty of 
transgression and the doom of lost spirits in despair. 

It is a question of purification from the defilements of 
sin, — of spiritual cleansing and re-enstatement into the 
Divine image, in which man was created. We need 
help and healing. We would be cured of this fearful 
blindness, — would get out from this land of darkness, 
of doom and desolation, into that of the promises. We 
would come into the right relations of our being, and 
find our true position among the rational intelligences 
which God has made. This is the question of the text 
and of the hour. How can we be reconciled to God, — - 
have the burden and defilement of sin removed, — con- 
science satisfied, — truth vindicated, — law and right 
maintained, and we be recovered to the place and por- 
tions of children of God, and denizens of His kingdom. 

It is also comprehensive in its range. It is universal 
in respect to apostate man. Every one is interested in 
it, and must make it, and practically heed its sugges- 
tions, — -must personally grapple with the answer, and 
find in a cordial compliance with it the life of his soul. 

But momentous and far reaching as is this question, 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 285 

and comprehensive as it is of duty and destiny, its an- 
swer is simple and obvious, and the response demanded 
is of the nature and reasonableness of all intelligence 
and truth. Bad theology may have embarrassed it 
somewhat, yet it properly lies among the plainest les- 
sons of experience and the word of God. 

The Apostle summarily answers, " Believe on the Lord 
Jesus Christ," &c. This may be looked at a little more 
particularly, and I propose then to notice some of the 
points of this inquiry of the smitten anxious jailor in 
the text, and to state in a plain way what one must do 
to be saved. 

1. — He must repent of sin. He must become a peni- 
tent man, and acknowledge and give up his sin. He 
must break down first and here. This is embraced in 
the foreground of all true reconciliation with God, and 
is vital to it. Nothing else is truly done without this. 
When one has done wrong, it is indispensable that he be 
sorry for it and retrace his steps. This is the first right 
thing he can do. It is so, from the nature of the case, 
and in view of all truth. While he fellowships his 
wrong no terms can be made with him, and no progress 
in the work of reconciliation. This state of mind for- 
bids it. He is in no condition to be forgiven. For- 
giveness would compromit all right and reason and au- 
thority and law and moral government ; — yea, and his 
own conscience. He knows that he is in the wrong till 
then, and is maintaining an attitude of alienation and 
resistance to rightful authority and law ; and that he is 
in an unfit state to be pardoned and accepted. His 
own conscience would rebel, — his own innate sense of 



286 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

justice and right would hold it as an incongruity and 
an unworthiness. He not only cannot have remission 
without repentance but he cannot take it without. He 
knows that he is an exotic and an outlaw, and must be, 
till he gives up and breaks down right here, — till deep 
repentings are kindled in his bosom, and in view of the 
guilt and ruin in which his transgressions have involved 
him, he cries out " Father, I have sinned against heaven, 
and in thy sight." 

No man in his soul is an advocate for sin, or who, 
from the very elements of his being, is not ashamed of 
it. It has not an absolute apologist on earth. No 
thing so takes the courage out of a man as to see that 
he is pursuing a wrong course. The English dramatist 
is right, when he puts into the mouth of his hero Ham- 
let (the murderous Macbeth) the words " 'Tis conscience 
does make cowards of all," and says again "Thrice is he 
armed, who hath his quarrel just." Thus, too, the voice 
of inspsration, "The wicked flee when no man pursueth, 
but the righteous are bold as a lion." We were not 
made for wrong action. There is not an element in 
our constituent being that will apologize for it. " The 
adulterer waiteth for the twilight, saying no eye shall 
see me, and disguiseth his face." Hence, the shifts and 
disguises and crafts of sin, — the crookedness and leger- 
demain of those in transgression. No man is the same 
man after he has committed a crime, and no one can 
calculate what he will do after, as he could before. No, 
his moral nature is outraged and demoralized. His 
course and his conscience are out of harmony. There 
is a war in his own bosom. Truth and right have a 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 287 

correspondent and coadjutor there which will not give 
up the citadel, which ever and anon lashes the wrong- 
doer. There is inherently no relief, except by repent- 
ance, for a single sin. One sin shuts us out of heaven 
and dooms the soul as truly as one hundred, or a life- 
time. Suffering does not blot out sin, — penalty does 
not. It does not at the forum of justice, or of the con- 
science. It does not in this world or at the bar of God. 
One wrong ruins a character among men, and all the 
more from the elevation on which it stood and the sanc- 
tity that enshrined it ; — one theft, — one robbery, — one 
murder, — one misstep in female virtue, — and there is no 
recoveiy, — absolutely no recovery but through conces- 
sion and deep and bitter repentance with tears, and not 
then without compensation. Conscience for one sin 
holds the rod over us for years, — for a lifetime, — forever. 
It will never say, it is enough — I am satisfied. How of- 
ten have we seen or felt this, so far as human experi- 
ence has gone or been reported to us, or can be in this 
world: and how many have dragged out a miserable 
life or been sent to untimely graves, by the gnawing of 
a remorse that they could not escape or brave. So in- 
exorable is law and truth and right, — that conscience 
within, — that moral government of God without. 

Repentance, with the grace of God, will give relief; 
and it is all the relief the case admits of. This does not 
wipe out or extinguish the sin, or make it out that it 
has not been committed. That goes to the records of 
the universe and into the personal history. But this is 
all that can be done in the premises, and is another 
method of attaining the ends of moral government, sue- 



288 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

cessful, and glorious on the failure and want of a strictly 
legal righteousness. And it has an inherent meetness 
and effort for recovery. It is of the normal working 
of the intelligence. It gives up the ground of sin. It 
shows our sense of the wrong and the guilt of trans- 
gression, and repudiates it. It is essentially a right af- 
fection. It takes the part of law and truth and God. 
It says, "Father, I have sinned." It acknowledges its 
wrong, and that is of the nature of right. It is a giv- 
ing up of hostility and the conflict. It yields the strug- 
gle and has in it the element of submission and obedi- 
ence. It is of the essence of true virtue, and God sees 
it so, and respects it as such, and makes it the turning 
point of destiny as it is that of the state of the soul, in 
its personal relations to Him and His government. And 
it is a relief to conscience. It unburdens the moral con- 
victions of the soul and reassures it with the confidence 
and courage which attend on all right action. It is 
child-like to God and His truth, and inspires us with 
the feelings and sentiments of sonship. It breaks down 
our hearts, but it breaks down, too, the partition wall 
between us and God. It is a state of mind in which to 
receive forgiveness and which makes forgiveness con- 
sistent with the attributes of God. In it we cross the 
line between the enemies and the friends of God. We 
yield the controversy, and give in our adhesion to God 
and His righteousness, and He accepts us. It is the 
enacting clause of redemption from sin and woe, and 
contains in it the germ and earnest of every grace. 
Without it we are aliens, — with it children and heirs. 
Before, we were enemies in our minds, and strangers to 



THE WAY OF SALVATION, 289 

the covenant of promise, now reconciled, filial and ac- 
cepted. Until penitent, we are unregenerate, — when 
penitent, then generate, — before in a state of unrecon- 
ciliation and wrath,— now in that of reconciliation, ac- 
ceptance and covenant mercy ; and there is no enigma 
in this. It is of the nature of a universal truth. It ob- 
tains in the state, in the family, in the commerce of man 
with man, — in the convictions of our own souls, as well 
as in the kingdom of God. " He that hardeneth his neck 
shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh 
his sin shall find mercy." Hence, the gospel is styled 
the gospel of repentance for the remission of sin. John, 
the harbinger of Jesus, "preached the baptism of re- 
pentance." And Jesus Himself began his ministry with, 
the words " Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at 
hand." Thus, too, when the day of Pentecost was ful- 
ly come and the disciples were all with one accord in 
one place and the multitudes were pricked in their heart 
and said to Peter and to the rest of the apostles, "Men 
and brethren, what shall we do V Then Peter said un- 
to them, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, 
In the name of the Lord Jesus, for the remission of sins, 
and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Thus 
the elemental germ of reconciliation to God is in re- 
pentance of sin, — in true and genuine contrition that 
we have transgressed against him, — and in deep sorrow 
of heart before him, for our sins. But at this point and 
in this state of mind are features and relations not yet 
fully considered. x\nd to one asking what he must do 
to be saved, our answer would be incomplete, without 
stating — 
19 



290 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

2d. — He must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. His 
Leart in repentance of sin must go over to the days 
man provided for him. This it will, whenever Christ is 
known as God's anointed, and is sent for deliverance 
and salvation to those lost in sin. This is integral in 
the thought and the matter of our repentance and 
return to God. It is confession of our lost estate in sin. 
our destitution and helplessness ; that we have no right- 
eousness, and must and do accept that provided in the 
gospel — do look to the Lamb of God who taketh away sin, 
ftnd fall in with the terms of mercy, which he has made 
known. This is but the counterpart of the same idea 
It is as the bone to the socket, or the rootlet to the leaf; 
?s the growth of nature to sunshine and showers. " He 
that cometh unto God, must believe that He is." He 
will confide in Him and His way of saving sinners. 
Without a righteousness of his own, he will cleave to 
that provided for him. Fallen under law, he will ac- 
cept thankfully the methods of grace. He will see him- 
self shut up to the faith — Jesus the only Saviour his 
propitiation, his ransom, his life ; and believing in God, 
he will believe in Him. He will shelter himself under 
the rock that is higher than he. He will repent of sin 
?,nd believe in Jesus to the saving of his soul. He will 
thus meet the terms of mercy. He is in a state suitable 
for forgiveness. It is fit now that God should be 
reconciled to him. Faith in Jesus is called for by all 
the relations of the subject. The sinner has no other 
resort. Confronted with righteous law, he is defense- 
less before it. Without strength in himself, he seeks 
the protection of grace The blood of Him who was 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 291 

slain for us, an offering and a propitiation for sin, is his 
refuge and hiding place. He pleads His merits, seeks 
acceptance in His name, and through it obtains the 
pardon of sin and a gracious inheritance among them 
that are sanctified. 

3d. — But in this attitude of the penitent, confiding 
sinner, trusting in Jesus, there is also an element of 
submission to God. This is integral in it — that which 
makes it complete. He gives up himself. He renounces 
his own righteousness — he acknowledges his ill-desert, 
and sees how it is by being forgiven that he is accepted 
— by reliance on the grace of God that he is saved. 
The sovereignty and sufficiency of God is present to 
him in a light and clearness that he never saw before. 
The claims of God — His excellency, His goodness and 
His grace overwhelm his soul, and he sinks at his feet. 
He has no longer a heart to resist God. The righteous- 
ness of God is apprehended — His supremacy deferred 
to — His authority admitted, and His will obeyed. In 
acknowledging its sin and ill desert and accepting the 
terms of mercy, the soul submits to God, and enters 
into the relations of Sonship. It takes the place of a 
child. It has the acquiescence and cordial sympathies 
of a child, and cries — " Abba Father." This is the 
normal relation and attitude of all derived intelligence 
toward God. It was created by Him and in His image 
and for His worship and service. And the sinner in 
repenting and getting on Gospel ground, only recovers 
himself from his abnormal, apostate state, and passes 
into the right relations of his being again and begins 
the work of recovery and restoration to God. He is 



292 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

renewed in the spirit of his mind. In his soul he is 
regenerated. He has come back to God. He is trans- 
lated from the empire of darkness to that of God's dear 
Son ; from that of rebellion and impenitency and hos- 
tility to God, to that of cordial surrender, affiance and 
Sonship ; and^he can now be admitted, and is so, to the 
privilege of Sonship, and becomes a fellow citizen with 
the saints and of the household of God. And here — 

4th. — We record the element of love to God. This is 
integrally of (this is that which completes) the affection 
and attitude and state of the sinner, which we have 
been describing. This will characterize his return to 
God from the error of his ways. He will be affected 
not only by the inherent excellency and claims of God, 
but by His condescension and goodness and grace in the 
Gospel. Such love and mercy ; such bending in com- 
passion over his necessities and his sins ; such reaching 
down from the habitation of His holiness, for the re- 
covery of one so lost in sin and so without help in him- 
self. O, Avas there ever love like this ! And it begets 
love. It subsidizes the affections of the soul for God. 
The smitten, subdued and reconciled spirit sees its 
indebteduess, and in filial gratitude and praise exclaims, 
"Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none 
on the earth that I desire in comparison with thee !" 
•'•' Love is of God, and he that loveth is born of God, for 
God is love." This is the right ongoing of all intelli- 
gence. Why should we not love God, and all the more 
that we have had much forgiven ; that we are taken out 
of the abyss of our sins and miseries, and have our feet 
planted on a rock, and this song of redemption and 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 293 

grace put in our mouths, as Watts well expresses it in 
the familiar lines : — 

"Since from His bounty I receive 

Such proofs of love divine ; 
Had I a thousand hearts to give, 

Lord, they should all be thine." 

And then, Finally. — He must live a new life. He will 
do this. It is no more than the legitimate correlate and 
offshoot of his state of mind. As well separate the 
trunk from the root, or cause and effect, or principles 
and purposes in the heart from the action that grows 
out of them, as deny it. It is as the stream to the 
fountain that feeds it, the ocean to the rivers that flow 
into it, or the face of nature to that benignant sun that 
radiates, and warms and quickens it. The plants of 
grace will grow in a gracious heart. The fruits of holi- 
ness will appear. " He that loves God will love his 
brother also." There is , unity and consent in all truth. 
" How shall he that is dead to sin, live any longer 
therein ?" A man that is converted to God, will live a 
godly life ; he will bring forth fruits meet for repent- 
ance, and out of a good conversation and citizenship 
among men, will show forth on every hand the inward 
and concurrent workings of that new life which is be- 
gotten in his soul, and which in the Bible sense and as 
the proper characteristic of his life, makes it true of him 
"that he cannot sin, because he is born of God." 

These, then, being the suggestions to be made, and 
the elements to be recognized in response to the ques- 
tion — " What must I do to be saved ?" it is manifest, in 
conclusion, that the answer is just what it must and should 



294 THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

be. It could not be anything else, and is altogether 
reasonable and accountable as it is. How could one be 
forgiven and accepted, while in his irrepentance and 
alienation from God, or without acknowledgement of 
the mercy of God in Jesus Christ ? It would outrage all 
the relations of the subject, and reduce the fundamental 
principles of moral government to chaos. We see how 
essential and intelligent, then, are the terms and the 
process from nature to grace — from being without God, 
and without hope, to possessing " the everlasting con- 
solation and good hope through grace" — from being a 
child of wrath, to being a child of God — from lying out 
under condemnation, and in the circumcision of the 
flesh and the spirit, to being adopted into the family 
of God, and becoming an heir of all the promises which 
are yea and amen in Christ Jesus. 

Again : — We see how easy and natural the terms of life. 
Ko dark enigmas ; no insoluble mysteries ; no unap- 
preciable intricacies of method or requirement. They 
take the reason and the conscience along with them, 
and oblige us to say in all honesty of heart, all this is 
just as it should be. Our own sense of the right and 
the good and the true, would not allow us to change 
them in a single particular. 

Well, then, we have the verdict of every conscien- 
tious conviction — the approval of every principle ofrea- 
son and truth ; shall we have the spontaneous and free 
determinations of the will ! The question goes to the 
arbitrament of our voluntary nature, and it is one of life 
or death — the life or death of the soul. Will we meet 
its terms % The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth and in 



THE WAY OF SALVATION. 295 

thy heart, even the word of faith which we preach. 
" Choose ye this day whom ye will serve." Existence 
need not be a failure and a curse : it may and should be 
a perennial, an everlasting blessing, an endless rever- 
sion of good. " The Spirit and the bride say come, and 
let him that heareth say come, and whosoever will, lei, 
him take of the water of life freely." Yes, let us all 
come — room enough in our Father's house and in our 
Father's heart. " Behold I stand at the door and knock." 
It is at the door of our hearts that Jesus stands and 
knocks, with all the promises and salvation of the Gos- 
pel, and we shall let Him in? and find through him 
reconciliation, pardon, peace and eternal life ? Forever 
blessed all who thus do. Amen. 



296 GOD IS LIGHT. 



II. 

GOD IS LIGHT. 

1 John, 1: 5. — "This, then, is the message which we 
have heard of him and declare unto you, that God is 
light, and in Him is no darkness at all." 

This seems to be a very comprehensive passage. It 
may be regarded as the resultant summary of what the 
apostle had learned of God from the life and teachings 
of Jesus and the communications of the gospel, and was 
commissioned to declare to others. The sentiment is 
repeated with emphasis and denial of its opposite. " God 
Is light, and in Him is no darkness at all", — and there 
is instruction and comfort and encouragement in this 
truth, and in this inspired announcement of it. We 
need the assurance and the consolation here given in a 
world like this, and with a being like ours. We need 
first principles ; undeviating elements of knowledge : 
sure and appreciable land-marks from which to make 
our offsets and calculate our distance ; the pole-star in 
the heavens to guide us in the voyage of existence: 
steady and true and reliable there, in the midst of the 
tempests and billows that buffet us here. Especially do 
we need to know what God is, and from our anchorage 
there, gain correction and assurance respecting all things 
else. Come, then, with me to this first truth of reason 



GOD IS LIGHT. 297 

and the Bible, and let us dwell a little upon it and 
gather up some of the lessons it furnishes : — 

God is light. 1st. — He is so in His being, — and this in 
two respects, — 1st, as to the reality and nature of it, and 
2ndly, as to the appreciableness of it. Nothing else is so 
evident to us as the existence of God; nothing so full 
of manifestation, — so self-evident, — so intuitively seen. 
It comes like sight to the eye, or hearing to the ear, or 
fragrance and taste to the senses that give them. 

If anything is, God is, and something is, by the tes- 
timony of consciousness and the senses. We are, — 
this magnificent universe, too, — and whence and how 
came it ? It is dependent, and derived. It is a thing, 
an effect. It is here because it was put here. But how 
do you get the dependent, the derived, the created, with- 
out the independent, the underived, the uncreated and 
eternal 1 You must have God, in order to Jiave any- 
thing else. An atom shows it as complete as a universe. 
We may not fully comprehend God, but we may com- 
prehend the truth that He is, and comprehend it per- 
fectly that it can but be that He is, and that to suppose 
the contrary is the veriest absurdity. 

Thus, too, the nature of his being. Underived exis- 
tence must be perfect. This is the normal original state 
of all intelligence, — of all mind. Sin is by apostasy 
from right. It is the original state of nothing. It is a 
breaking away from righteousness, — a transgression of 
law, and supposes it and its previous existence and bind- 
ing force and righteous authority, and a lawgiver who 
is good and has rightful jurisdiction and a perfect law, — 
in a word, that God is in all the perfection of His being 



298 GOD IS LIGHT. 

and glory of His attributes, and sovereignty of His sway, 
as "God over all blessed forever." Reason apprehends 
this, and that nothing else can be in its place, and noth- 
ing go back of it or be more ultimate. This is a first 
truth in the clearness and perfectness of it. It is im- 
plied in all truth else, and is the the beginning of all 
truth and the basis of it. So obviously and necessarily 
is it the dictate of the intelligence, that we scarcely need 
Revelation to come to its aid. Hence, the Bible never 
stops to prove the existence and perfection of God. It 
assumes them, as already known to reason, and begins 
with declaring what He did. "In the beginning God 
created the Heavens and the earth." The Bible recog- 
nizes the being and perfections of God and makes its 
full economy of instructions on the basis of them and 
in recognition of, and coincidence with them. It comes 
from the depths of infinite intelligence and reason, to 
the reason given us for its information and benefit, and 
being "by inspiration of God, is profitable for doctrine 
and correction and instruction in righteousness, that the 
man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished to all 
good works." 

2d. — God is light in His purposes. They are like Him- 
self, the emanation of one who is holy and just and good. 
In spirit and in method they are perfect. God's ways 
and thoughts are like Himself. A perfect righteousness 
is the method and compass of Deity, — a perfect and 
happy universe the great aim and end of God. No ques- 
tionable expedients, — no dark enigmas, — no subtle pol- 
icy, — no connivance with wrong, and no consent to it, 
or permission of it, harbor in the mind of God. He 



GOD IS LIGHT. 299 

will not do evil that good may come. He sustains but 
antagonistical relations to sin. It is wholly outside of 
a divine economy. To prevent, to remedy, and to pun- 
ish it, is the whole mind of God concerning it. We 
may not give it theistic relations, as if it was in any 
sense of God. His mind and purpose are all against it, 
and for its prevention, discomfiture and overthrow. It 
is only disobedience to God, — a revolt and rebellion 
against Him, which He is taking the best methods in 
infinite wisdom to put down, and to recover the uni- 
verse from the blight and curse of. It is wholly coun- 
ter to His great end and purpose in all things, and 
which in the methods of probation and retribution, — of 
grace and justice, He will subdue and control, and even 
bring instruction and good out of it in the end. 

We wrong God and our conceptions of Him when we 
put Him into strategic complications and correlations 
with sin. That is simply an aberration in finite cause 
against His will and way in all things. The mind and 
purpose of God are a transparent holiness and perfec- 
tion in all righteousness and goodness and truth ; His 
will and end is the sanctification of mind, and a holy 
and happy universe in His love and likeness. 

3d. — He is light in His works. They grow out of the 
perfection of His being and are the transcript of it. 
They are the offspring of His purposes, and like them. 
" He has created all things by the word of His power, 
and for His pleasure they are and were created." This 
could but be so ; any being will work like Himself. The 
characteristics of His mind will show themselves in what 
He does. Thus, God is known in and through His 



300 GOD IS LIGHT. 

works. Is He perfect, so each, in its kind, are they. 
Hence, creation is a perfect work. It is so in every 
part, — in the minutest as well as in the grandest and 
most imposing features of it. No work of art improves 
on the principles of vision which the eye presents. The 
insect's wing, the mole and the bat are made with as 
much care and as perfect an adaptation to their sphere 
of being, as the sun or the stars. 

And so is it in the moral sphere. Man was made in 
the image of God. "In the image of God created He 
him." And what could be better? Here is the essen- 
tial perfection of God brought forth in the finite, as in 
the case of angels before. God is a person, with all the 
attributes of a righteous and holy personal intelligence ; 
so in their measure are finite intelligences. They are 
made to apprehend and know God, — to understand and 
love Him, — and have personal qualities and experience 
like Him, with the high behests of free will and moral 
responsibility. 

True, this involves the responsibility of wrong choice 
and apostasy from God. But in this free election be- 
tween good and evil, is seen the virtue of right choice, 
and the excellency and glory of a moral system. What 
would a moral government be over mere machines? 
What would become of all moral distinctions, if the 
power of contrary choice was taken away? Where 
would be the doctrine of praise and blame, — of good or 
ill desert, — or conduct and character and destiny ; or 
where the place of law or counsels or instruction, or the 
first motions of the intelligence in the conscience, or of 
moral truth at all, or anything above merely physical 



GOD IS LIGHT. 301 

md sentient existence ! And then, indeed, why have 
)ven that ? The body is for the sake of the soul, — na- 
ure for the supernatural. Merely physical being has 
10 correspondence with, no recognition of God; no 
communion or fellowship, no appreciation or worship, 
10 responsibility. It is a mere thing, — perfect in its 
vay, but the bare scaffolding of the building. The 
•rowning work is the formation of mind, personal beings, 
m intellectual, moral universe in the image and after the 
ikeness of God ; and this of necessity implies personal 
iee-will, and it could not and should not be otherwise, 
md you inevitably have the possibility, yea, even the 
iability of wrong. But this liability does not mar the 
)erfection of a moral system. It is the necessary nieth- 
)d and touchstone of it. It gives the occasion and the 
igreement of law, and the scope of instruction, precept 
md promise. It is our monitor, our tuition, our culture, 
[t brings out the heart of God to us, and ours to Him, 
ind by the possibility of wrong, lifts its note of warning 
igainst it. 

There is no argument for wrong, no occasion, no need 
)f it. No one need to sin, or is ever placed where he 
•annot do right, and ought not. Intelligence was made 
for right action, though inherently and necessarily cap- 
ible of its alternative. No man' should hate God or his 
neighbor. Wrong is ever an argument for right. Sin 
is ever a critic on itself. Conscience is a swift witness 
against it, and in harmony with God and truth for all 
righteousness. 

4th. — God is light in His word. It is a revelation to 
us — a manifestation of Himself still more express and 



302 GOD IS LIGHT. 

definite and adapted to our moral state now, than are 
the works of creation. " Thy word is very pure, there- 
fore Thy servant loveth it." Its design is to reveal 
God in His intentions and purposes more fully, and give 
us light. It is light in our path and a lamp to our feet, 
and we are to go to it as to i ' a light that shineth in a 
dark place, until the day dawn," &c, This is the aim 
of its communications — its doctrines ; its precepts ; its 
requirements. There is no effort at the concealment 
of truth in the word of God. It is all over luminous 
with divine instruction for our use and benefit. Its 
ministers are sent forth "to teach all nations," and 
bring them to the knowledge of the truth as it is in 
Jesus Christ. He is " the light of the world," and His 
gospel is commissioned to " enlighten every man that 
cometh into the world." 

oth. — God is light in His great end in all things, and in 
His way of attaining it. It is like Him and worthy 
of Him, and it is seen in His law and in His gospel, and 
in all thai He has said and done. It is a holy, happy 
universe, under the administration of a perfect, moral 
government. This is God's great end, and this is God- 
like and God's way, and this is all there is belonging to 
His way. God's method is a perfect righteousness, and 
so is his end, with the results it guarantees. God does 
good, because it is good, and because He loves to. He 
is benevolent, for that is His nature. His heart goes 
out in all right action, because it is right and just and 
good and blessed so to do. The full heart of the entire 
Deity is right here, and He has done nothing to darken 
counsel in the matter, and we need not. There is a 



COD IS LIGHT. 303 

transparency and a clear looking into the very heart of 
God here, that is in no other being. We know where 
he is. We can appreciate His methods and ways, as we 
can those of no one else. We know that He will do 
right, and that a perfect righteousness enspheres the 
Deity in all His thoughts and works and ways. In re- 
spect to others, we may be afloat and adrift, but we are 
anchored fast here. We do know that He is ever true 
to the principles of all righteousness, in the administra- 
tion of a perfect, moral government, over the intelligent 
universe, both under law and grace. " He is light, and 
in Him is no darkness at all." And if so, then — 

1st. — We should apj)reciate and understand Him. We 
should come to the light and welcome its consistent 
shining. The being and perfections of God are a first 
truth in reason and before the mind. We may know 
just where He is on every moral question. No dark 
enigmas lurk in His character, and no complicity w4th 
wrong. If sin occur, it will be in abuse of moral gov- 
ernment, and against His prohibition and His will. He 
has no stragetic relations to it but to counteract and 
overcome it : and admonish the universe in view of it. 
It is not His way in any respect. Its wrong and mis- 
chief are no part of His method, and He is by all the 
prerogatives of the Infinite, putting it down in the best 
time and way, and bringing it into merited condemna- 
tion and reproach. A holy and right-minded universe, 
as He created it. is His way. All His methods are like 
Himself. No contravention of first principles, or adop- 
tion of the maxim that the end sanctifies the means. 
We mav throw all this overboard, and retain our unem- 



304 GOD IS LIGHT. 

barrassed and unalloyed conceptions of the perfect 
rectitude and integrity of God. All His relations to 
wrong are right, and He is infinitely happy in these re- 
lations, and is bringing out infinite glory on all right- 
eousness in the progressive and utter discomfiture of sin, 
as the end will show. If rebellion is possible, it may be 
a failure, too, and notwithstanding, and bring down 
merited rebuke and condemnation on those engaged in 
it, while the methods of redemption show the heart of 
God respecting it, and while all heaven will ring with 
shouts of praise to Him for the energies and success 
of His recovering grace. 

2. — Our theology ought to be intuitively clear in its 
statements. God is light. We know what He is, and 
where He is and what He will do and what He will not 
do. A perfect character is before us. He will do, and 
be in His relations to us, only what is good and just 
and right. Our philosophy of truth respecting Him 
should not be embarrassed and paradoxical. Our ab- 
stracts of faith ought not to be difficult of apprehension, 
and contravene, or seem to contravene, the first princi- 
ples of morals or the intuitive convictions of the mind. 
We should not make God the author of sin in any 
sense, either strategetically or decretively, or as on the 
whole preferring it, or as any way correlated with it, 
except as its uncompromising antagonist and determined 
foe. It does not follow because sin is, that God in any 
way wills it, or that He is not doing all that belongs to 
Him as God to prevent and overcome it ; and to glorify 
all righteousness out of this miserable apostacy and 
wrong. What has he not done to this end in making 



GOD IS LIGHT. 305 

man holy at first — in giving him a conscience and a law 
of right prohibiting sin — cursing it in His word and 
providence. What in redemption and retribution ? 
Sin is an outbreak from God, and is here without any- 
such relation to it, on his part, as the decreeing of it 
implies, and we should let nothing bring a mist over our 
minds at this point. We should absolve ourselves from 
all this. There is a more excellent way. There is a 
better analysis of truth — one that fairly and frankly, 
and without mincing or misgiving or compromise, and 
in plain common sense, keeps God in the right, by all 
the laws of truth and morality. If sin is inherently 
possible under a perfectly moral government and as an 
abuse of it, let it not be accounted a Divine strategy or 
expedient or by ordination and the purpose of God, but 
every way against His mind and in contravention of His 
will. We ought to clear the highway of truth and 
of the ransomed from all these dialectics of the schools, 
and let the character of God shine out in its trans- 
parency and perfectness in our formulas of thought, 
without let, stint or hindrance, as elsewhere, it shines in 
all His works. 

3d. — If God is light, then the more we know of God, 
the more we shall appreciate Him. We shall study His 
character and perfections with increasing interest and 
satisfaction. Mists will clear up, snags will give way, 
difficulties fall back, and we shall see that they belong 
not to Him or to the legitimate consideration of His 
works and ways. 

4th. — If God is light, then to seek to know Him and 
to know Him more perfectly, is no anomoly and no dis- 
20 



306 GOD IS LIGHT. 

credit to us. We were made to know God and under 
stand Him. Formed in His image, to apprehend His 
being and character is a first truth of reason, infallible 
in clearness and perfection. I am as certain of the ex- 
istence and perfections of God, as of my own conscious 
existence and dependence on Him. And I would study 
ever to know more of Him, and drink into His own 
divine fullness, from glory to glory. 

Again :— The knowledge and appreciation of God will 
be the delightful study of eternity. We shall know 
Him as He is ; we shall look into the face of God and 
all will be light. The days of darkness and mystery 
will be passed — the difficulties will be cleared up, and 
be seen not to belong to Him. We shall intuitively 
justify His relations to wrong, and see how much it was 
the adversary's plan to darken counsel here. That cloud- 
less sky will reflect His perfect likeness, and we shall 
behold it, in all His works and ways, with increasing 
rapture and delight through eternity. 

Finally : — If God is light, then will he be a swift wit- 
ness against all works and workers of darkness. There 
is no place where those who work iniquity can hide 
themselves from Him. Let us escape from every refuge 
of lies — flee unto Him who is the refuge from the 
storm, and the covert from the tempest, to Jesus while 
it is to-day. And now, my friends, there is a practical 
side to this subject. These two kingdoms are before 
you and will go on into the future. The struggle be- 
tween them will mainly characterize that which is to 
be. Christ is yet to be the great idea of humanity, and 
to come in for the conquest of the world to truth and 



GOD IS LIGHT. 307 

holiness. Shall we yield to or resist Him — be His, or 
not % Here lies a personal obligation and prerogative. 
Will we break down at the foot of the cross and come 
to Him. or stay away % We can do either. We can 
have our choice. We must have it. All the light 
and influences belonging to the subject, may beam 
benignly on our pathway ; and all the prerogatives 
of the Infinite be kindly enlisted in our behalf, and 
yet we only resist and grieve the Holy Ghost. And 
this kingdom of Jesus — of peace and salvation, will 
have to move on to the empire of the world without us, 
and leave us behind with the miserable remnants of 
earth's population, that must fall at length under the 
wheel of a righteous retribution, and sink to unmiti- 
gated and everlasting shame and contempt 

I said the alternative is ours. It is ; and let us be 
equal to it, on a responsibility which eternal ages alone 
can interpret. 



308 EVIL AND GOD. 



TV. 

ESSAYS AID REVIEWS. 



I. 

THE MYSTERY ; OR, EVIL AND GOD. NO. I. 

It is interesting,' as well as hopeful to the cause of 
moral science, to observe how steadily and surely the 
inquiry is coming up concerning the origin of moral 
evil and the relations of God thereto. Since the publi- 
cation of the "Problem Solved; or, Sin not of God," 
in this country, two elaborate works have been published 
in Scotland alone, hinging on this subject, and taking 
substantially the view of it, which that work did. Dr. 
Tullock, in his Theism, one of the Burnett prizes, and re- 
published by the Carters here, (a very good quarter by 
the way,) was the first in order. The whole subject of 
Dr. T. led him over a wider range of thought than is 
here referred to, but he sums up all the difficulties in 
the way of a consistent and appreciable Theism, in the 
fact of the existence of sin, and boldly and triumphantly 
marches to his conclusion, that sin and wrong are no 
part of the Divine economy — that they are not to be re- 
solved in a theistic argument, that they lie outside of it, 
but are, and must logically as he in effect says, be re- 



EVIL AND GOD. 309 

latecl to God, and his government as rebellion is to the 
strategy, design and head of a state. In a word, that 
sin is in no sense of God, and that He does, and can 
sustain only antagonistic relations to it, and that this is 
the dictate of reason, logic and conscience, as well as of 
the Bible. This surely is the very spot to break ground 
for the Scotch mind, and is inherently a good beginning 
on the whole subject. It rolls away mountains of diffi- 
culty, and gives a simple significant issue. It was, more- 
over, the point mainly adjudicated in the " Problem 
Solved" under the conviction that if this was rightly 
apprehended, the rest would come easily and as a mat- 
ter of course, and we are quite happy to see Dr. Tul- 
lock's views on this head so fully quoted, if not en- 
dorsed by the Bibliotheca Sacra, in its notice of his work, 
about one year since. 

The other work referred to, and whose title stands at 
the head of this article, is by Dr. Young, (L. L. D.,) of 
Edinburgh, so widely known as the author of "The 
Christ of History" and reprinted also in this country by 
the Carters. This last work of Dr. Young is repub- 
lished on this side of the water, by J. B. Lippincott & 
Co., of Philadelphia, and is every way a readable book. 
It is more elaborate and exhaustive of its subject, than 
that of Dr. Tullock. It is confined to the consideration 
of the great problem of evil, and its relations to the be- 
ing and character of God. The main, prominent prin- 
ciples of the book may be found in the others here re- 
ferred to, but Dr. Young crowds them on with intre- 
pidity and strength, into the various attitudes of affili- 
ated truth. What was briefly and timidly suggested by 



310 EVIL AND GOD. 

Tullock, as relieving the difficulties of the subject, and 
to neutralize the perplexities of our Theology; Dr. Y. 
boldly expands into the order and relations of system- 
atized truth. What the Problem, in its modesty and di- 
rectness stated, as first truths of reason, and indubita- 
ble intuitions of the human mind, as containing the 
principles within the range of which this whole subject 
could be satisfactorily adjusted ; he has taken on, with 
a greater breadth of statement, to their ultimate con- 
clusion, and for the benefit of the more cautious, or per- 
haps, the less reflecting, to the more complete solution 
of the problem involved. These Scottish works are 
reviewed in the British Quarterlies, and cannot fail 
to elicit discussion, surely, north of the Tweed. Their 
reprint in this country will also still enlist the attention 
of the American mind, to a subject which, lying at the 
basis of all morality, yields in importance to no other. 
If we may not know the relations of God to evil, — if 
the mind may not think them, and the pulpit and the 
press express them fully, if they are to be in part muf- 
fled up by a lurking and stealthy theology ; holding that 
sin is, in some comprehensive sense, of the economy of 
God, and a Divine expedient for good, and in fact the 
best thing possible in its place ; then indeed are all our 
Christian teachings unsustained and surface-like, and all 
our moral sentiments outraged and belied. The idea is, 
in the last analysis, pantheistic. It constitutes God the 
only cause, and sin and wrong the Divinely appointed 
method of the universe. The Hindus have it, in its full 
extent, and there is no dividing of the dogma with them 
which will meet the demands of conscience or Christian 



EVIL AND GOD. 311 

truth. There is, there must be a better edition of doc- 
trinal statement and belief, at this point ; and it lies in 
the direction of the writers referred to in this notice It 
is found in distinguishing the nature of a moral system, 
in ascertaining the doctrine of a true and proper per- 
sonality, both in the infinite and the finite, and the nec- 
essary relations and demands of it, in all affiliated truth. 
This would harmonize our theories with our moral con- 
victions — our theology with our conscience and the word 
of God. Until this is done, it is impossible that moral 
science should be complete, and the essential unity of 
this whole subject attained. The hiatus lies between 
our doctrinal statements and our moral sense, between 
our creeds and our conscience. The one affirming that 
God is tempted with evil, and that it is comprehensively 
according to His will, and the other, that it is not, and 
cannot be. Consistency between them is just what is 
needed, for the unobstructed sway of both, and of un- 
embarrassed conviction in favor of the claims of the 
gospel, and that the works alluded to, will bear benign- 
ly on this result, coming, as some of them at least do, 
from so good a quarter, may be fairly and devoutly an- 
ticipated. 

EVIL AND GOD. NO. II. 

The objections to the received theory, that sin and 
wrong are of God, as being decreed and ordained by 
Him, and are a part of the Divine programme of the 
universe, are that it is not appreciable, is inconsistent 
with the known character and righteousness of God ; 
that it cannot be preached, or acted on, or felt to be true 
at the time of committing sin ; that it contradicts con- 



312 EVIL AND GOD. 

science, destroys the unity of the moral nature of God, 
and with it takes away the foundation of all morality, 
elevates sin to a place impassable to it, by making it a 
Divine means and expedient for good, and thus creating 
an impassable gulf between our creed and our conscience, 
and rendering our divinely constituted moral nature no 
criterion or God-send of the moral nature of God. 
These objections and many more are felt and acknowl- 
edged on every hand. It is admitted that this is a terra 
incognita. The appeal is uniformly ad ignorantiam — that 
it is a mystery, though yet to be held as being demanded 
by cognate truth. It is confidently said that nothing 
can be, but what God permits, and what is on the Whole 
best, and is thus according to his will, and may be mat- 
ter of Divine decree and arrangement, as his method 
of the universe. But is this so? Just here lies the 
fountain of error on this entire subject. This reasoning 
and this view keeps wholly in the physical sphere of 
things. It does not enter the moral system, or get help 
from the necessary elements thereof, and hence the 
insuperable hiatus between the creed and the conscience 
at this point, and hence the supposed necessity of hold- 
ing that sin and wrong are in some sense agreeable to 
the mind and will of God. But why not give up the 
dogma altogether"? The consequences apprehended 
from tne surrender of it, would not follow. There may 
he that in a moral system which God in no sense wills or 
permits, and we feel so, and are conscious of it every 
time we commit sin and do wrong, and are, by the 
irresistible laws of our being, drawn necessarily to the 
conclusion that the Divine supremacy is in the direction 



EVIL AND GOD. 318 

of rebuke and punishment, and not of the permission of 
wrong. If the created universe were a mere thing, God 
might be the only cause. But in a moral system, where 
there is moral personality, this is otherwise. Intelli- 
gence is, in its nature, cause, and there are as many 
plans and programmes of thought and action as there 
are intelligent beings to make them, and they are not 
necessarily inclusive of each other, but stand related 
personally to their respective authors. Why does God 
need to purpose the purposes of the wicked in order to 
deal with them 1 Must a good being plan a wrong, in 
order to circumvent or punish it, or pardon or restore 
the wrong doer ? Must God be the author of confusion, 
to bring order out of it % 

But the thought is fundamental, and will bear a more 
generic reference. I state it therefore in the form of a 
universal proposition, and one which underlies this 
whole subject, which will go far in giving a consistent 
and satisfactory analysis of it. I will give it in the 
fewest words, and invite inquiry to it. All personal in- 
telligence is inherently sovereign, of its own voluntary states. 
This is of its essential nature. Remove this sovereignty 
any where else, and you destroy this personal intelli- 
gence. Take away from a personal being the sovereign 
control of his voluntary responsible movements, and you 
reduce him to a thing. The direction and absolute con- 
trol of his voluntary action lies with himself, and with 
no other being in the universe. This is but a law of 
mind, and of all personality. To place this elsewhere 
is only an absurdity. God is sovereign of the voluntary 
states of His own mind ; those made in His image are, of 



314 EVIL AND GOD. 

theirs. What is the doctrine of law at this point 1 Does 
it not claim what can be withheld I Does it not acknowl- 
edge this ? Would it be moral law without, or anything 
but mere physical force, and would there be any virtue in 
yielding to that which could not be resisted ! What is 
the lano-uasre of exhortation? It would be a mere 
pageant, if the sovereign control of the issue lay with 
him who gave it. 

Try this on any scale you please, in relative or social 
life, in Church or State, in the finite or infinite. Why 
does God instruct or exhort, or discipline, or make 
promises, or give commendations, or punish? Why 
have retribution at all ? Does God prefer it 1 Would 
He rather that a great many should be lost than saved, 
and could He have it as well as not, if He only willed 
it ? Will there not always be those over whose minds 
God will not have control 1 Will the moral state 
of the lost be a Divine preference, or according to the 
will of God 1 Has God the direct and absolute control 
of the state of their hearts, and would they be other- 
wise, but for His will and pleasure that they should be 
as they are 1 If the absolute control is with Him, then 
where is the responsibility ? 

So many, and more, are the absurdities indicated, 
of denying the position here stated. And if eveiy 
mind is a sphere of sovereignty, and this is a fundamen- 
tal law of moral personality, then may there be that in 
a moral system which God does not will or decree, and 
we may reduce His decrees and determinations to the 
sphere of His own acts and works, and regard the first 



EVIL AND GOD. 315 

as the mental condition of the last. And if so, then we 
may weed out all sin and wrong from the purposes of 
God, and hold him as in no sense devising them, and 
standing only in eternally antagonistic relations to them, 
and as ever bringing in the best way possible, all the 
influences of law, and truth, and right, and gospel, and 
all moral means to bear on the issue, for the prevention 
and discomfiture of sin, and for the restoration and 
righteousness of intelligent beings. These influences 
.are in their nature resistible. They would not be moral 
otherwise. But they may prevail. All men are not as 
bad as they can be. The appeal is to conscience, and 
the constituent principles of our being. Men may re- 
pent, where they could hold out in impenitence. Many 
may yield, as all should, to truth, duty and the spirit of 
God, and no longer "resist the Holy Spirit." This 
issue is finely brought out by Dr. Young, as referred to 
in my last, and with referring to that I close the present 
statement, asking only the attention of your readers to 
one more concise article, in which I shall dwell a little 
on the main difficulty with most minds, and which I 
will here state : Why did God create beings that He 
knew would sin against Him ? 

EVIL AND GOD. NO. III. • 

If, then, such are the objections to received theories, 
that God sustains a strategetic, propositional relation to 
sin, and that it is comprehensively according to His 
will, and a matter of His decree ; still the question may 
be raised, even on the view presented by the writers, 
commended in these articles. Why did God create intel- 
ligent beings, whom He knew would sin against Him ? 



316 EVIL AND GOD. 

There may be reasons in the depths of the Infinite, 
which it is not important for us now to appreciate. 
We are interested in the question, mainly as the first 
principles of morals are concerned, and as we would 
have our minds set free from those implications on the 
character of God which false theories of sin originate. 
I may then, without presumption, and without pretend- 
ing to exhaust the subject, suggest the following thoughts 
in reply : 

1. — God made man upright, and for uprightness and 
uprightness sake. This we know for he has said so, the 
one part of the position being included in the other. 
This surely no one will gainsay. If any do, let them 
draw out an opposite view, in extensu, and then look at 
it, and see if they dare fellowship it and abide by it. 

The same is true in respect to angels, as is most man- 
ifest from His treatment of those " that kept not their 
first estate." And that this is a universal law in the 
intelligent creation, is demonstrably evident from the 
Divine prohibition of all sin, and from the uniform, and 
every way revealed and published methods of the 
Infinite, in relation to it. If any one denies this, let 
him see if he can express his belief without mutilating 
the perfections and unity of God, and undermining the 
foundations of morality. And if this is so, is it not 
enough ? If God made the intelligent universe upright, 
and in His own image, to appreciate, and glorify, and 
obey Him, and to be perfectly happy in His love and 
likeness forever; how good the work — how right the 
end — how glorious the Being that conceived and pros- 
ecutes it. And this is the more striking as presented in 



EVIL AND GOD. 317 

its absolute and universal form of thought — viz : — 
2. — Intelligence in uprightness and for it, is a perfect 
work. A quiescent Deity is a solecism. God is a pow- 
er in the direction of His own perfections, and intel- 
ligences like Himself and the offspring of His own 
spiritual being, will be His crowning work, and having 
a subordinate, physical and sentient creation adapted to 
it below. And beings so made, " in the image and 
after the likeness" of God, and for the legitimate aims 
and purposes of such beings, are a perfect work. It is 
just the work of the Infinite One, in the infinite and 
perfect freedom of His own intelligence and will. 
Nothing else could be better — nothing else could be in 
its place, — a moral system in uprightness, and for it, is 
just the sphere of the Infinite here, and the perfection 
of the creating fiat of God. Just think a moment. 
What can be better in the finite, than a Divine offspring ; 
intelligence like God, to be and act in correspondence 
with Him, and to the same end that he does ? And to 
fill the universe with such beings, and forever to enter 
into communion with them in all the reciprocities of the 
Infinite and finite, in the legitimate working of a moral 
system, is the highest conceivable design in creation. 

3. — Intelligence is in its nature free, and a moral sys- 
tem in its voluntary issues, is inherently self-elective. 
This is essentially, of its vitality and very life. It 
would not be intelligence without this. Take this 
element out of a moral system and you destroy it and 
render impossible all responsibility or virtue whatever. 
This is its perfection — this its glory. It would not be 
God-like but for this. All that elevates it above a mere 



318 EVIL AND GOD. 

thing, concentrates here. All possibility of virtue lies 
here, that while under the obligation and the privilege 
to do right, we may do wrong. Sin is inherently pos- 
sible in a moral system. It is not constructively made 
so, it is integrally possible, and the matter could not be 
otherwise. All personality implies it — all responsibility 
and character, or destiny, or reward — or praise and 
blame — or honor, or glory and excellency — all above a 
mere thing in physical or sentient being. Wrong is a 
possible alternative in a moral system. It can be, 
although it has no right, and no Divine leave to be. It 
can be, simply against His will, and against the object 
for which He made mind, and upholds it. This capa- 
bility is of the nature of all mind True, in God wrong 
action would not be intelligent action, and God will 
always act intelligently and in the right, in the infinite 
freedom of His spiritual being. And in the finite, the 
commencement of wrong is more conceivable in the 
first stages of being, than after long confirmation in 
holiness and felicity. Still electivity is of the essence 
and glory of a moral system, and of the perfect work 
and ways of the Infinite. Finite mind can disobey 
Him. It can act unreasonably, and foolish, and wicked, 
and this, too, notwithstanding all the prerogatives of 
the Infinite in favor of its right action. This is through 
no Divine provision for it, or Divine election, that 
wrong should be, but simply the prerogative of mind 
under the responsibilities charged upon it. 

Such are the inevitable concomitants and inherency 
of a perfect moral system. And it is enough here to 
recognize, that what was liability, has become actuality, 



EVIL AND GOD. 319 

at least in two or three worlds, out of the myriads on 
myriads which God has created. This, perhaps, might 
be expected, in so vast an economy, though it might be 
but the exception in the numberless ranges and spheres 
of intelligent beings, though it could make no difference 
in respect to the nature of mind, or the perfection of the 
work and object of God in its creation. 

4. — The inquiry and the difficulty supposed in it, are 
wholly fallacious, in that they ascribe to God the acci- 
dents of time. This is a mode of being and reckoning, 
adapted to, and possible only in the finite and created. 
To the Infinite, " one day is as a thousand years, and a 
thousand years as one day." God is no older than He 
always was. In absolute duration there is no difference 
of time. This is but a circumstance of being, confined 
to the finite and progressive ; it has no significance as 
to God. The term foreknowledge, is in accommodation 
to our mode of being, not to His. He knows things as 
they are, and in the relations in which they are, and not 
otherwise. Strictly, He knows sin as He sees it to be, 
and not otherwise by forecast or remembrance. The 
infinite wisdom of God, in the moral sphere, is an ever 
present discretion, in behalf of rightness and truth. 
Hence the perfect appositeness of the inquiry to Adam 
when he had sinned, "Hast thou eaten," &c, and of 
prayer always in behalf of things inherently right and 
good. The method of the Infinite, as we are surely not 
presumptuous in saying, is to do right, and perform a 
perfect work, because it is right and perfect, and for a 
right and perfect object. Hence, as Dr. Young graph- 
ically expresses it, for God to act without an end, (that 



320 EVIL AND GOD. 

is one more ulterior than inherent righteousness,) is 
greater and more glorious than any end which can be 
named. To do light for pure lightness, is the highest 
end conceivable. It is just the way of the Infinite, and 
to prosecute this interest, and sustain this end, and its 
concomitants in those made in His image and after His 
likeness, is just the sum of His relations to character 
and conduct, is a moral ' system. The objection, then, 
stands on a fallacy by supposing God to be altogether 
such an one as ourselves, instead of the Infinite and ab- 
solute One of reason and the "I am," of the Bible. 

5. — An answer more appreciable by some minds is, 
that if the objection were not founded in fallacy, it 
would nevertheless be out of place, and of no practical 
avail. This I would put in a more concrete and famil- 
iar way, and one level to and abundantly attested in hu- 
man experience. Is law wrong, or inexpedient because 
some will violate its provisions, or is it to be held ac- 
countable for their defalcations ? Do we hold human 
government responsible for the fact that it is not uni- 
versally obeyed, and is the state answerable for rebel- 
lion against? Is the parental relation to be repudiated 
because it is certain that children will sin? The ob- 
jection alleged accords with no principle of social life, 
or responsible action. It keeps wholly in the physical 
sphere. It does not take any cognizance of the laws of 
mind, or rise to the dignity of a moral system. Does 
not conscience always accept the personality of guilt and 
hold each one to his responsibility for character and con- 
duct? With suitable advantages for right action, we 
absorb and exhaust the responsibility of wrong on him 



EVIL AND GOD. 321 

who does it. The existence of the infinite reasons for 
right action, concentrates his wrong upon him, while 
the whole leaning and counsel and influence of the In- 
finite, saying to him, " Oh, do not this iniquity which 1 
hate," forever absolves God from the responsibility of 
that wrong. 

Besides, a Divine moral system is an economy of be- 
ing, universal and perpetual. It has universal laws, and 
perpetual results. It is a nature of things in respect to 
both the body and the soul, rather than a series of dis- 
integrated and independent creative acts. It embraces 
a universe of responsible beings through eternity, in their 
origin interlocked by social influences and hereditary de- 
scent, and by all the attributes of a generic and univer- 
sal economy; and there is no naturalness or place in 
application to it. of the principle of the objection. It 
is enough that God made man upright, and for upright- 
ness, and that this is the Divine characteristic and aim 
of a moral system, and that full play is and must be giv- 
en for conduct and character, under law and truth, and 
infinite reasons for the love, and service, and enjoyment, 
and likeness of God. Here is the sum of the responsi- 
bility of the Creator in respect to the aberrations of any 
of his intelligent offspring, from the very terms of a 
moral system, — and this being so, an intelligible and 
philosophical basis is seen, for his own Divine assevera- 
tion, as in a given instance to Israel, — "What more 
could I have done to my vineyard that I have not done 
in it, wherefore then, when I looked that it should bring 
forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes." 

I intended to express here a few thoughts in respect 
21 



322 EVIL AND GOB. 

to certain passages of inspired history, such as that re- 
specting Joseph and his brethren, Pharaoh, Cyrus, and 
the death of Christ by wicked hands, &c, &c, ; but my 
limits forbid more than a concise statement of the prin- 
ciple which harmonizes the elemental truth found in 
them, with the view here given. It is this, viz : From 
the stand-point of the existence of sin, the best ivay of reform 
and redress is a perfect way and the way of the Infinite. 
From the point of the breaking out of rebellion against 
God, and the being of wrong, the best method of re- 
ducing and overcoming it, and instructing the universe, 
in view of it and its mischiefs, is a perfect method and 
the way of God in respect to it. This is all the case 
admits of. The occurrence of sin interrupts the harmo- 
nious on-going of the moral sphere, in the way' of an 
absolute perfection, — disorder is introduced, and the In- 
finite, in the perfect wisdom and benevolence and right- 
eousness of his nature, adapts himself to this anomalous 
state of beings in the finite, — and in prosecuting the 
right, and the true, and the good, and in bringing light 
out of darkness and order out of confusion ; he inter- 
locks with the evil machinations of the wicked, in any 
and all ways that any good being may in his sphere, 
against the opposers of right and in securing good ends 
thereby. He lets sin criticise its own method — the 
wicked fall into the pit which they have digged — yields 
Jesus to the malice and hate of wicked men, that he may 
be the life of the world ; and thus in every way of jus- 
tice and of mercy, secures good to the intelligent uni- 
verse from the miserable apostacy, and wrong, and mis- 
chief of sin. 



REVIEW OF DR. BUSHNELL. 323 



II. 

REVIEW OF DR. BUSHNELL ON NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 

This book, by Dr. Bushnell of Hartford, is now the 
fifth in order in the late theological literature of the day, 
designed to suggest the relations of God to sin, and note 
the characteristics of a moral system. The first, "The 
Conflict of Ages," recounted the trials of the past history 
of the Church on this subject, and offered an apology 
for the present state of man, in the supposition of a pre- 
existent one, in which he sinned ; but did not reach the 
main question, " How comes it, that there is sin at all, 
in any world V 9 The second, " The Problem Solved" was 
introductory, in design, to the main issue, containing, in 
short hand, the self-evident principles on which the 
vexed question of moral evil may be adjusted in harmo- 
ny with the dictates of conscience, and the demands of 
all truth. • ■ 

The Burnett prize, entitled " Theism" by Dr. Tullock, 
of Scotland, came next, in which moral evil was ruled 
out of the Divine economy into one of its own, essen- 
tially dualistic and anti-theistic, and therefore could 
claim no solution in an argument concerning God. 

To this succeeded the work of Dr. Young, of Edin- 
burg, "The Mystery; or, Evil and God" which more elab- 
orately discusses the whole subject, happily presenting 
its main features, and, with some immaturity of view at 



324 BE VIEW OF DR. BUSHNELL. 

certain points, making a decided advance in the right 
direction. And now we have Dr. Bushnell again on 
this side of the water, seizing on the same principles of 
thought, in his characteristic, original way, in behalf of 
a correllate object. 

The chief element in all these works, so far as the 
question of the " origin of evil" or its solution, is con- 
cerned, lies in the doctrine of personal cause in the fi- 
nite, as an inhering attribute of all intelligence. This 
Dr. Bushnell presents in many bold and trenchant pas- 
sages of his book. He treats it quite at large, and with 
many instructive references to, and illustrations of, its 
intuitive truth. Indeed this is the main staple of his 
work — this his idea of the supernatural, and with its 
correllates, underlies the superstructure he would rear. 
In this respect he has done good service to truth, and 
added the contribution of his brilliant and fervid pen, 
to the elucidation of the legitimate personality of all 
those made in the image of God. We are not sure, in- 
deed, that in his efforts to give this element of our being- 
full play, he does not overstep the proper balance of 
truth, and make sin and wrong a sort of moral necessity 
in the universe. There is no need of this. Something 
better was to be expected of finite intelligences than 
that they should apostatize from God. Man sinned, at 
first, under strong temptations from without, and in his 
inexperience, and that the multitude of the heavenly 
hosts are once fallen beings, we shall be slow to admit. 
The universe is so full of God, and of incentives to love 
and praise Him, to all intelligences as He made them, 
that in respect to the myriads inhabiting the worlds in 



IiEVIEW OF DR. BUSHNELL. 325 

space, disobedience, we may conclude, is by no means 
the rule, but the exception. Mind does not need the 
tuition of wrong. There are correllates enough within 
the sphere of right for its institution and training. Sin 
is "unreason," and "unnature," as well as unrighteous- 
ness, and sustains about the same relation to the good of 
the universe, or the glory of God, as the breaking of a 
leg does, to its being well set. Here our author ap- 
proaches the solecism of Dr. Hickok on the same sub- 
ject, (see Review of Problem Solved in Bibliotheca Sacra,) 
where he argues that the highest type of moral govern- 
ment must be so severe in its terms that some will sin, 
thus putting the boot on the wrong foot, and offering a 
degree of apology for disobedience and crime. This 
forgets- that divine moral government is always a per- 
fection — that it is necessarily what it is, and neither more 
or less, and also that the universe is full of considerations 
for obedience, and of dissuasives against sin. 

This not well studied deflection of Dr. Bushnell has 
betrayed him into a further, a more serious, cognate 
mistake. It is this, that sin is somehow ordained and 
arranged of God, and is thus of the Divine economy. 
As if to hold himself yet a true son of the Church, he 
quotes the Catechism for this. But cart loads of cate- 
chisms would not sanctify the sentiment, or heal the 
wound it inflicts on the first principles of morals. Phil- 
osophy, logic, and morality proclaim alike its impossi- 
bility. It forgets the anti-theistic nature and relations 
of sin, and its utter unaccountableness as a Divine strat- 
egy. It ignores the conclusion of both Tullock and 
Neander, who declare sin to be utter " unreason," and 



326 REVIEW OF DR. BUSHNELL. 

throw it out of the Divine economy as in no sense of it, 
and as not needing or capable of a solution in a " theis- 
tic argument.'" The doctrine of cause in the finite is 
needful here. Intelligence is a cause per se, in a plane 
of its own, and when acting wrong, goes counter to 
God, and His plan, and purpose, and end, in all things. 
Wrong is by no strategy of right. Sin has got foot- 
hold by no Divine leave. God does all that a. perfect, 
moral government, administered in infinite wisdom, ad- 
mits of against it, 

But the more generic and fundamental mistake of Dr. 
Bushnell in this connection, and that which is parent to 
those above referred to, lies in the old category of Dr. 
Taylor, that the present is a "choke" of systems, and is 
the best possible, as involving the fewest evils, and having 
the least imperfections and the most good, of any of ten 
thousand or more that might have been present to the 
mind of the Deity. But this is not the way of the In- 
finite. 

A moral system, as God's plan, is a perfect righteous- 
ness, in the method, and to the end of a perfect and uni- 
versal righteousness. Anything below that, He would 
have no heart to, and would ever hold as utterly un- 
worthy of Him. Any jumping at conclusions, through 
questionable expedients, He would repudiate as an ut- 
ter abomination. Derived intelligence He made in 
His own perfect image and likeness, and for a sphere of 
perfect, righteous blessedness, and ever administers His 
government to this end, and until we take this position, 
and come up to its behests, our theology and moral sci- 
ence will be insuperably lame and deficient. 



REVIEW OP DR. BUSHNELL. 327 

Still our author, in the earlier chapters of his book, 
has well presented the doctrine of a real personality in 
finite course, and made a decided approximation to the 
relations of sin in a moral system. 

The reasonings of Dr. Bushnell in the 7th chapter, 
on "The anticipative consequences of sin" will not strike 
many as of any great value. What relation a merely 
physical or sentient creation would have, by itself, to the 
question of right and wrong, it might be difficult to de- 
termine. "We see no need of exhuming the deposits of 
preadamite periods of the earth, to show by malforma- 
tions and carnivorous propensities there, that God an- 
ticipated the outbreak of sin in our world. The shape 
and habits of animal life then, might not have had their 
reason and ground in that idea. Indeed, Dr. Bushnell 
himself loses sight of it, in supposing the presence 
here of apostate spirits from other spheres, that might 
have occasioned the mischief observed in the geologic 
ages of this. 

The chapters on the life and miracles of Christ are 
well conceived and full of interest, though some might 
wish that the true doctrine of miracles had been a little 
more sharply defined. This is so graphically taught in 
the calling and mission of Moses in the Book of Exodus, 
that we ought not to mistake. 

The chapter on "Miracles and spiritual gifts not dis- 
continued" might as well, or better have been left out, 
It makes little for the general purpose of the book ; will 
be questioned extensively as to the evidence of any 
special Divine interposition in the facts referred to, and 
will be accepted as just so much capital in their behoof, 



328 REVIEW OF DR. BUSHNELL. 

by the manifold Spiritualisms of the day. A deeper re- 
gret is, that this chapter will lessen the respect and 
weight really due to the general drift and conclusions of 
the book, which, as a whole, is well worthy of the care- 
ful study of those who would gain the philosophy of 
truth. Its doctrine of the "Supernatural," as in con- 
trast with mere " nature," is a complete manifestation 
and triumph. Some of its positions give evidence of 
not having been carried to their ultimate analysis, and 
of not being thought fully through, even though the 
work has lain a year or two on the shelf. With a meas- 
ure of allowance for Dr. Bushnell's rapid, and somewhat 
rhetorical method, of writing, the book will be read 
with interest and profit. It is very timely, and will be 
hailed as another evidence that mind, among us, is wak- 
iag up to the demands of moral science, and seeking 
for the coincidence of theology with the elements of all 
reason and truth. 



REVIEW OF DR. DEWEY. 



329 



III. 

REVIEW OF DR. DEWEY'S LECTURES. 

March, 1852. 
It was my privilege to attend Dr. Dewey's recent 
course of lectures, in this city, on the " Problem of Hu- 
man Destiny.'" He is a man of decided ability, and very 
considerable research into the nature and foundations of 
truth. His audiences were large and select, and his 
course well sustained to the end. Many difficult prob- 
lems came under review, in the main issue aimed at. 
They were discussed with unflinching integrity of pur- 
pose, and met with the best solution which the general 
theory of the course admitted. The error, if error there 
was, lay in the conception of first principles. From 
the frankness and independent cast of mind uniformly 
evinced by the lecturer, it is perhaps not too much to 
expect, that still further research will suggest some de- 
fects in the system of thought which he has proposed. 
They would lie within the range of these two categories 
— the problem of evil and the analysis of mind. I refer to 
them in the order of4he lectures, though the last is truly 
parent to the first, and when placed upon a just basis, 
would much relieve the discussion of the other. Indeed, 
it would so illustrate the doctrine of sin, as to go to the 
very vitality oi the discussion given on the problem of 
evil, and set aside some of its main features as irrelevant 



330 REVIEW OF DR. DEWEY. 

and valueless. It would so change the "venue" as to 
render unnecessary much that was presented under this 
head, and relieve the subject of many difficulties seen 
by the lecturer, as inherent in it. 

Dr. Dewey is right in saying that the liability to sin 
is necessarily inherent in a moral system. Man could 
not be man without the power of choice, But there is 
a difference, heaven-wide, so far as divine government 
is concerned, between the liability to sin and the actual- 
ity of it — between the capability of wrong and the ex- 
istence of it. Any man can commit murder ; but to be 
a murderer is fearfully another thing, This distinction 
the lecturer does not make wide enough, and it is the 
prominent vice of the reasoning into which he is thus 
betrayed. He would vindicate God in this matter of 
evil ; and this he attempts, not in the way most legiti- 
mate, by tracing natural evil to its source in moral evil 
or sin, and holding the sinner himself responsible for 
that and its consequences ; but by an apology for these 
evils, in the way of mitigation, and by showing their 
use and necessity in the progress of human development. 
I am aware that the Dr. has some authority for this. 
He is but treading in the steps of time-honored theories, 
which extract the best good of the universe from the 
principle of wrong and misrule that has got into it. 
But why hold God or His government responsible at all 
for the occurrence of sin or its effects in natural ills, and 
by consequence reduce it almost into the same category 
with natural ills, and those themselves into an inheritance 
of blessings. Blessings they may be, or the modifica- 
tion and results of them, in a redemptive economy, and 



REVIEW OF DR. DEWEY. 331 

may show the wisdom of God in bringing good out 
of evil. But no thanks to sin, or its direct effects, 
which all are bad, and only bad. The lectures at this 
point, and it was the leading thought in them, were too 
apologetic and excusatory. The subject of human sin- 
fulness and desert was but seldom adverted to, and lay 
but lightly on the face of them all. I can bat view 
their moral influence in this aspect of them, as decidedly 
unhappy. 

But there was logical consistency here. The conclu- 
sion follows legitimately from the premises. Hold God 
responsible for the existence of sin, and you must excuse 
it, and transfer it to the catalogue of providential ills. 
It is here that we struggle to be wiser than the Bible, 
and that our metaphysics get at fault with our common 
sense. We attempt theories behind the facts of the 
case, and which neither reason nor revelation demand. 
The Bible holds the sinner alone responsible for sin and 
its effects — comprehends in him the question of its ex- 
istence, and presents the divine relation to it, as wholly 
preventive, remedial and punitive. And why is not 
this the end of our wisdom on the subject ? " God 
hath made man upright, but they have sought out many 
inventions." " Hast thou eaten of the tree of which I 
commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat thereof? 
— cursed is the ground for thy sake." t%c. Sin is no 
where in the Bible declared to be a good, or the means 
of good, or the necessary means of the greatest good. 
Wrong is no where viewed as better, at any point, than 
right — sin than holiness — the misrule of Satan, than 
subjection to the government of God. No; this is a 



332 REVIEW OF DR. DEWEY. 

gift of philosophy, and of a philosophy that needs re- 
view. Men may wickedly do that which God has before 
determined to be done ; but their sinning in the premi- 
ses is no part of His economy, and no feature of His 
government. Sin is wholly a foreign element, intro- 
duced by another hand, against His command — against 
His will. It has in no sense His permission or consent, 
and we should allow no theoretic view of the compre- 
hensiveness of His purposes to displace our common- 
sense convictions of it, as utterly and everywhere an 
evil and a wrong which His soul abhors. 

These lectures do not in form endorse the philosophy 
here referred to ; still it lies at the basis of much of the 
reasoning employed, and decidedly influences the view 
taken. Hence the very infrequent reference to the sins 
and deserts of men, as the source of natural ills, to a 
retributive providence ; and hence, too, the palliations, 
and defenses, and compensations of good, thrown into 
so bold relief in treating of polytheism, and idolatry, 
and oppression, and war, and the many crying enormi- 
ties which have been entailed by sin upon the genera- 
tions of men ; and also, the somewhat surprising fact 
that no reference was made to the penal eflects of sin 
in another state of being. 

But the point of utmost interest in the lectures, is 
that where an analysis of the mental faculties is attempt- 
ed. Here lies the parent error, we think — the germ of 
that philosophy which has well-nigh absorbed out 
of them all recognition of the doctrine of sin and ill- 
desert, and rendered the moral influence of them quite 
otherwise than that which the subject demanded, and 



REVIEW OF DR. DEWEY. 333 

which we devoutly trust was intended. Dr. Dewey 
gives three faculties — the intellectual, the aesthetic and 
the moral ; or the power to think, the sense of the 
beautiful, and the sense of right, or the moral sense or 
conscience. He does not enter the sphere of the will. 
The executive faculty, the personal, voluntary, respon- 
sible " me" — that which makes one an agent, and per- 
fects all our relations to law, and duty, and God, and 
one another, he leaves out ; and doing this he could 
not, in any legitimate sense, have sin and wrong, or 
desert anywhere in the system, and might consistently 
ignore the distinction between moral and natural evil, 
and treat sin as he would the head-ache, or a broken 
limb. This was the "proton pseudos" of the course. 
No man can discuss the problem of human destiny, and 
lose sight of the distinctive prerogatives of the will. 
This is an integral point, and failure here is fatal. And 
here we must view the doctrine of the lectures as fun- 
damentally lame and inadequate. Not that the words 
" will" and " free will" did not occur, but that the doc- 
trine of the will was not discussed— its position given — 
its relations to moral government defined, and the 
legitimacy traced between it and the disciplinary and 
redemptive economy of this world, and the retributive 
dispensations of the next. 

This defect was the more remarkable when the subject 
of the mental constitution came up in the course, as the 
Dr. had availed himself of this prerogative of will, in 
one attitude of it, in his first lecture — viz.: that of the 
inherent possibility of transgression and wrong in a 
moral system. This is undoubtedly so. The power of 



334 REVIEW" OF DE. DEWEY. 

right or wrong action is a necessary attribute of all 
intelligence. And if so, why not venture on it as a 
fixed truth, and trust it through, and stake the issue on 
it ; not in the attitude of privilege only, but of responsi- 
bility also ? Why not grasp firmly the idea that will is 
cause, and in its sphere, comprehensive of all cause — 
that, as a faculty, the will is sole cause of its actions — 
that nothing else in the universe stands in this relation 
to them — that we are ourselves the cause of our volun- 
tary states and conduct — and that there is a logical 
absurdity, so far as we are concerned, in going beyond 
ourselves with the question of responsibility % The 
problem ends there, and anything else we have to say 
about it, or the connections of other beings or subjects 
with it, sustains other relations to it than that of cause 
and legitimate responsibility. I do not know that there 
is more happiness in the present system of the universe, 
than there would be without sin. The sense of right is 
deeper in the human soul than the love of happiness. 
There are other than utilitarian ideas that enter into the 
question of divine government, and the problem of 
human destiny. The wisdom which is from above is 
first pure, and then peaceable, &c. Dr. D., in his discus- 
sion, did not go beyond our present state of existence — 
he did not pass out of probation in the solution of his 
problem. This might give a more secular cast to his 
lectures, but it left the subject incomplete, and embar- 
rassed the discussion of it so far as pursued. " It is not 
all of life to live." We must look over into another 
state to solve the riddle of this. Without it, the ends 
of Divine government, in discipline and in all the 



REVIEW OF DK. DEWEY. 335 

remedial influences bearing on us, cannot be reached — 
this mixed providence accounted for, or a befitting solu- 
tion given of the sins, and woes, and wrongs and issues 
of earth. But I have extended these remarks beyond 
my expectation, and only add, that Dr. D.'s closing 
lecture on the progress and prospects of the race on 
earth, was very fine, and in some parts of the summing 
up, quite comprehensive and sublime. 



336 FREE WILL. 



IV. 

FREE WILL. 

[For tlie Evangelist.] 

Messes. Editors : — I read with interest Prof Smith's 
review of Dr. Whedon on the Will, in the January 
number of the American Theological Quarterly of your 
city, and as quarterlies are slow and are seen by few- — as 
I write short notes now, and as y*our readers are largely 
among the intellectual classes — permit a few thoughts 
on the subject. 

It must be confessed that Dr. Whedon has met a 
sharp antagonist, and some of the favorite views of 
Methodism a severe exposure in the pages of Prof. 
Smith. But both men appear to have raised ghosts, 
that they could hardly lay : the author through his 
traditional dogma of a "gracious ability," and the 
reviewer in his, of a universal, divine predestination. 
The latter, however, slips the leash somewhat, under the 
cognomen of "permissive decrees," which he does not 
define, while he holds his man rigorously to the con- 
sequences of his needless admissions. 

But why treat free will as if it were a question in 
mere physics, and not distinguish between the personal 
within us and a treadmill or a steamboat ? Why run 
the parallels of " cause and effect" upon it, or brandish 
weapons about the point of "greatest apparent good," 



FREE WILL. 337 

as if that exhausted the discussion or met at all the 
merits of the subject % In this afternoon of the nine- 
teenth century of grace, why not shake off the clogs of a 
gross materialism of method and rise into the super- 
natural, on a theme so commanding it? This might 
have saved the author much mortification, and given 
the reviewer some work that he may not have anticipat- 
ed. The subject of free will or human personality 
accepts a wider range and lies in other parallels of 
thought and speech than those found in the Review. 
The question of "alternate choice" is a vital one in 
philosophy as well as in fact, as the hinge of all respon- 
sibility and morals, and there are those who will regret 
to see it put hors du combat through the weakness of an 
advocate, or by being set side by side with other mat- 
ters, with which it has little affiliation. Entering their 
disclaimer here, let me attend it with a few brief sugges- 
tions. 

The argument is three-fold, which denies the identity 
of the " is" and the " can be," or that the one is the 
exponent of the other, in the moral sphere, and which 
claims for every intelligent, responsible being, anywhere 
and everywhere and always, and that he exercises it, the 
power or privilege of contrary or alternate choice ; it lies in 
the characteristics and nature and logic of the doctrine 
itself of choice ; it is the uniform testimony of conscience • 
it is the vital element of moral government and in all 
responsibility. 

I have no choice if I can't choose either, and if I can 
choose either, I can choose the one I don't choose, and 
that is the whole of it at this point. It is a mere ques- 
22 



338 FKEE WILL. 

tlon of logic. If two things are submitted to my elec- 
tion, I have the privilege of either, or there is no vitality 
in the transaction, and I may choose either or neither, 
act wisely or foolishly, righteously or unrighteously in 
the premises — according to my convictions or contrary 
to them — as I should — or otherwise. It is in the nature 
of mind and of the case, and no man is placed where 
just this cannot be said of him, and it'is just this which 
constitutes his manhood and distinguishes between him 
and the steamboat and the water-wheel. To be able to 
move freely one way does not meet the terms of the 
problem. It may be a conscious movement, but this 
does not give it vitality on the question before us, or 
make it authentic. There must be the jurisdiction over 
the issue, the self-control and power to shift and alter, 
to stop. or go on, the will and the wont, everywhere and 
always, ever at hand, always liable and legitimately in 
the movement and characteristic of it, so that to say 
that the power to the contrary is of no use, as it is never 
exercised, is simply irrelevant and gratuitous, as it is 
exercised constantly and constitutes the spirit and life 
of the transactions, too, without which it would sink 
out of the sphere of mind and become a question in 
mere physics. 

And this also is (2) the testimony of consciousness. 
Prof. Smith never did wrong without the conviction 
that he was not obliged to do it, without being conscious 
of this power to the contrary, and that situated just as. 
he was he could have said No, when he said Yes ; and 
that if he could put in the plea " I could not help it," 
conscience would offer excuse now and take it to the bar 



FREE WILT.. 339 

of God. So with every man. No one is ever placed 
where he cannot do right. We are not obliged to follow 
a great temptation or a leading or prevalent disposition. 
Its prevalence is no test of our powers, and no reason 
why we should not countermand it, and act according 
to truth and conscience and right. And this we do 
whenever we change character and conduct. We 
exercise this gift of contrary choice and say to passion, 
hush, be still. And no one ever changed character or 
conduct without it. No sinner ever turned to God 
without it, or repented of his sins. But for it, a being 
once wrong is always wrong, and character is stereotyped 
for eternity. Without the power to change what shall 
change it — how quench a prevalent motive, or supply 
its opposite? Every child acts on the principle here 
advocated ; it is in the woof of human society and in the 
experience of every man. 

And again (3) what is moral government without 
this? Why undertake to command me, when I am 
under the sway of wrong with no power to the contrary ? 
Moral government is a falsity and a hoax, if I cannot at 
any and all times and however situated, repent of my 
sins and obey it. The power of self-control in him to 
whom it applies is inherently of it, and its enacting 
clause. Moral influences are inherently resistible. This 
is in the nature of all exhortation, or command, or 
reward, or punishment, or responsibility at all, or intel- 
ligent destiny; as good command tadpoles or even 
cabbage stumps as men without this. There is no merit 
in obedience where there is no power to resist. A vir- 
tue that is inevitable is no virtue. Simply to move in 



340 FREE WILL. 

grooves prepared, and by force applied, smoothly it may 
be said, though roughly enough in fact, does not supply 
the leading element in moral government or rise out of 
the sphere of simple physics. 

Nor is it of use to say that by " necessity" only 
"certainty'* is meant. More is meant. A necessary cer- 
tainty is claimed, and that nothing else can be in its place, 
or it is not worth the ink that expresses it. What do we 
know of the certainty of future volitions 1 Experience 
tells a sad tale here. God knows all things by intuition 
from eternity. He knows them because he sees them. He 
sees the end from the beginning. Contingency and cer- 
tainty are alike open to his inspection, physics or morals, 
and that whether he has decreed all or not. Most 
agents know more than they decree, or would like to ; 
I confess I do, and much that I should be ashamed to 
have decreed. And I do not know but God does. At 
least he says so, and speaks of much that he has no 
mind to at all. He doubtless decrees all he does, as all 
agents do, and acts always from the counsels of his own 
will, and here comes the kink of the worsted. The 
plea of necessity is for a theological reason. It is asked, 
lest some of God's decrees should not be executed. We 
outrage one science for the sake of dogmas in another. 
And is this fair % We take the life blood of morals 
and reduce all personality to a movement in mechanics, 
for the sake of an excresence in theology at once un- 
gainly, uncomfortable, and gratuitous. Who knows 
that a divine decree necessarily conditionates all that is ; 
that the pranks of the devil equally with the work 
of Jesus are of the counsel of God, and that all other 



FREE WILL. 341 

agencies and acts in the universe are absorbed by and 
included in a Divine agency, forecast and purpose ? 
Cannot God be supreme on other terms than this, and 
better put down wrong without decreeing it than with ? 
Must sin be according to His " decretive will," in order 
to be subdued and overcome by Him ? The purposes 
of a being are like Himself. They have a personal re- 
lation to their author, and characterize him as showing 
what he is, and why make monstrous the unity and per- 
sonality of God by putting Him on all sides of a moral 
question, and bringing sin as well as holiness into the 
economy of God ? Here is the enigma and the trouble, 
and it is bad theology as well as bad metaphysics. Cast 
out sin to its own agencies, and leave God to His, and 
to those of all righteousness. It is this assumption of a 
universal Divine predestination, sin, and rebellion, and 
wrong included, and thus throwing to some extent, the 
patronage, the guardianship, and superintendance of the 
Most High over them, thus cutting the grooves and 
necessitating the direction ; that works the mischief. 
We can get loose from this, to the advantage of moral 
government, the laws of mind, and the laws of God. 
Allow every agent to decree his own acts, and have 
control of his own acts under the responsibilities of his 
position, and then indicate what he would have others 
do, and influence them in behalf of the doing of it. 
He may fail sometimes, as God does, in bringing sinners 
to repentance. But not always. Men may repent when 
they can resist. They do. Moral means, though not 
irresistible, may avail, and increasingly, as they will, 
immeasurably ; ' in the ages to come." God knows it, 



342 FREE WILL. 

and He lias revealed it to us. The time will come 
when men will repent by scores and thousands, and 
come in by cities and countries, almost without resist- 
ance, as children do sometimes, and a nation be born in 
a day. Men will yield to the Spirit, when they might 
resist and grieve Him. They will love God and Jesus 
with full and conscious power to the contrary, and be 
all the happier that they choose the right when they 
could choose the wrong, and that their obedience is the 
spontaneous gushing of their own elective and living 
personality, helped of God graciously and within the 
sphere of their ability, and not the mere effect of an 
outside pressure, in which they could do nothing but 
move as they are moved. 

I am happy to observe the interest felt in this subject, 
by our best thinkers and writers, and hope to see it yet 
better understood, before I go hence. 
Yours truly, 

M. P. Squiee. 

June 22d, ls65. 



spirit's influences. 343 



DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT'S INFLUENCES. 

The doctrine of the Holy Spirit is fundamental in the 
system of Christian truth ; it is the central pillar of the 
edifice of grace, and should be intelligently regarded by 
all who serve at the altar, or labor for the coming of. 
the kingdom of God. 

The subject has intrinsic value, and a reference to it 
is especially appropriate now, when, though living under 
the promised dispensation of the Spirit, and near, as 
marked in prophecy, to the expected glories of the lat- 
ter day, we mourn, as with one consent, His absence, 
and the declensions of Zion. Want of discrimination 
in respect to the doctrine of the Spirit, may in part have 
contributed to the evil complained of, and be among the 
impediments to a brighter day. 

The work of the Holy Ghost in redemption is usually 
summed up under the heads of inspiration, miraculous 
gifts, and the spiritual renovation of the hearts of men. 
Dismissing the first two, as aside from the object of this 
article, we confine ourselves to the last. The children 
of the kingdom " are born of water and of the Spirit"- — 
"the love of God is shed abroad in their hearts by the 
Holy Ghost" — "we are saved by the washing of regen- 
eration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost." 



344 spirit's influences. 

Our aim, in the ensuing pages, is to trace some of the 
characteristics of this work of the Spirit, as seen in the 
light of reason and the Bible. 

1. — This work is not for the supply of defective fac- 
ulties of mind ; it is not in place of any that are dis- 
paraged or wanting since the apostacy of man, or to 
amend deficiencies in the constitutional elements of his 
intelligent nature. He has all the faculties now which 
he had before the fall, or will ever have, and all that are 
needed and appropriate to his sphere of existence and 
responsibilities. He has all the susceptibilities which he 
had at the creation, and is inherently capable of all that 
lies within the range of his designed being ; of becom- 
ing an angel or a devil, and that too in the way of the 
intelligent and conscious formation of character, under 
the responsibilities of law. We conceive these to be as 
truly the attributes of man now, as of any other respon- 
sible being. The claims of a perfect law are as appro- 
priately applicable to him now, as when in the garden 
of Eden, or to the fallen or unfallen spirits of other 
worlds. Character in him rises from the use of the 
same faculties as in them. His lapse, recovery, and 
confirmed holiness, are according to the same laws of 
mind. To give up the integrity of man's mental con- 
stitution, is to surrender the testimony of consciousness, 
and with it, both the sense of amenability to law, and 
the fact of its intelligent application to us. It is to 
blot out moral philosophy from the list of the sciences, 
and reduce man to the condition of idiocy or the brute. 
Every blow aimed at the elements of the intelligent na- 
ture of man, strikes equally at the doctrine of his ac- 



spirit's influences. 345 

countability, and the position of our race in the moral 
universe. 

2. —The Spirit's work in conversion is not to render 
the mind capable of responding to truth. This capabil- 
ity is innate. The mind is constitutionally adapted to 
the apprehension of truth, and truth adapted to influ- 
ence mind. The element of reason in man, embracing 
in the term all that in him which is the subjective ground 
of responsibility, is like reason in an angel, or in God 
Himself. It is His image in man. It is of God's creat- 
ing, and after His own likeness. To it He reveals Him- 
self, as to that in man which can understand and appre- 
ciate His communications, and apprehend the true rela- 
tions and fitness of things. Reason is essentially unique 
in the universe of moral beings, and alike in its legiti- 
mate intimations, whether situated in the Divine Being, 
in angels, or in men. If not, there is no correspondence 
in the parts of the divine economy in this respect. If 
reason is one thing in God, and another in angels, and 
still another in man, what foundation for intellectual in- 
tercourse can there be between the parties 1 What com- 
mon reference to the same rule of right, the one same 
bond of relationship I The reason of man must be the 
counterpart of the reason of God, if God puts man in 
intellectual correspondence with Himself — extends over 
man His institutes of moral government, and holds him 
to the responsibility of acting according to the mind and 
will of God. In one moral universe, the elements of 
mind, finite or infinite, must be in kind the same, and 
hold the relationship of common elements of reason and 
moral being, and this is man's intellectual relation to the 



346 spirit's influences. 

universe of existent beings and truths. It is of the na- 
ture of his intelligence to apprehend truth and its rela- 
tions, and to approve them. To this attribute of reason 
God appeals in all His communications, as the counter- 
part of His own intelligence, and which gives off inti- 
mations in accordance with His truth and will. He has 
but one standard of right and wrong — but one law for 
angels and men, and holds all to the responsibility of 
understanding it alike, and understanding it aright. 
One economy of legislation answers for a universe of 
minds. God treats all as though the element of reason 
were alike in all, and, according to the fitness of things, 
like His own. Such is the verdict of human legisla- 
tion. One law and one penalty are equally for the mil- 
lions of the state or nation ; a common responsibility at- 
taches, where truth is known, and reason not dethroned. 
We exact the boon of right intentions from all to whom 
our intercourse extends, and plead it for ourselves. We 
commit our cause to the arbitration of posterity and the 
world, gn the one principle of the generic character of 
mind ; of the essential accordance of reason with the 
nature of things and the reason of God. We anticipate 
the same for it in the future world, as we rise up in 
knowledge and holiness to the measure of the stature of 
perfect ones in Christ. On this legitimacy of reason, 
and its likeness to the God of reason and the Bible, do 
we fix as the subjective ground of the exhortations of 
that book, and ask submission to its dictates. Other- 
wise we may as fitly preach truth to the brute as to man ; 
as well discourse on the high concerns of judgment and 
mercy to "the spirit of a beast that goeth downward to 



spirit's influences. 347 

the earth," as to "the spirit of man that goeth upward;" 
as well urge obligation and destiny on the worm in his 
slime, as on him to whom "the inspiration of the Al- 
mighty hath given understanding." 

We speak here of the element of reason as created 
and constituent in man ; of its essential oneness of na- 
ture in the universe as the basis of thought — the per- 
cipient of moral truth — the source of authority, or the 
subject of command, — the responsible author of all men- 
tal and moral acts; — that to which God has revealed 
Himself, and with which He condescends to reason, — 
before which He submits the rectitude of His own con- 
duct, and from which He challenges results, in accord- 
ance with the reason that framed the universe and gov- 
erns it; and it is to this characteristic of mind that we 
refer in asserting for it the inherent power of respond- 
ing to truth, and which we regard as the basis of all our 
moral relations to God and duty, to probation and des- 
tiny. Hence, 

3. — The work of the Spirit under consideration, is not 
to make men responsible for the issue of truth commu- 
nicated to them. Responsibility is inherently appropri- 
ate to man ; it is the natural result of being constituted 
as we are ; it is an element — a law of our moral being. 
We consciously form character under the light of truth, 
and hold ourselves and each other responsible for right 
or wrong action, under consideration addressed to the 
mind. Increased light, means, privileges, and helps, en- 
hance the measure of responsibility, but they do not lay 
the foundation for it, as an element of our being. It 
springs legitimately from our own attributes and rela- 



348 spirit's influences. 

tionship to God as creatures. Responsibility to obedi- 
ence does not depend on the presence of the Spirit of 
God. Of ourselves, and without His functions, we are 
fitly held answerable for all the truth that meets our eye, 
for all the considerations to right action which cross our 
path. Truth is obligatory without the Spirit. Men are 
bound to obey the Gospel, even if the Spirit be with- 
held from them ; they would have been, if the doctrine 
of the Spirit had never been revealed, or if this element 
of mercy had never entered into the economy of the Di- 
vine dispensations to man. Consciousness gives off this 
intimation of responsibleness in respect to all our states 
and acts of mind which are related to law. The vilest 
of men reveal it in the excuses they invent for their 
wickedness. If it be not inherently resultant of our 
moral and intelligent nature, the impenitent man is free 
from the obligation to obedience, and the "finally lost" 
will find apology for the sad issue of the means of grace 
in respect to them. And hence, 

4. — The work of the Spirit in conversion is not to 
create a conscience. This faculty also is a constitution- 
al element of our being, allied to, and conjunct with 
reason, and its existence, as such, is evinced in consid- 
erations already adduced. We no more, evidently, have 
intellect to investigate aud understand the relations of 
truth, than we have an inherent provision in our being, 
or a moral sense, to feel amenability to law, obligation 
to right action, and compunction for wrong. All that 
can or need be said about the matter is, that God has 
so made us, and that it is manifestly appropriate to the 
design of our being, that we should be so constituted. 



spirit's influences. 349 

A conscience is inseparable from us every where, and 
through every stage of our being. Early childhood 
evinces it; its scorpion sting extorts confessions from 
men steeped in crime ; and its province in a future world 
we discover in the anguish of the worm that never dies. 

Conscience may be stifled, for a time, but cannot be 
destroyed. It may be misinformed. The light that is 
in the understanding may be defective, and the con- 
science be poorly conditioned to discharge its appropri- 
ate functions; but it is an honest faculty. It accords 
with the reason in man, and the reason and will of God. 
So far as it has light and opportunity, its intimations 
are in behalf of law and duty. Its struggle is for the 
supremacy of right in the soul. It is the antagonist of 
sinful passion and propensity. With reason and truth 
and the Spirit of God, it forms the antagonist force to 
all that is wrong in man. It is God's vicegerent in us, 
for our recovery and restoration to His image and favor. 

Conscience is of right the dominant principle in the 
soul, and where it is not, in fact, there is conscious 
wrong. Its legitimate privilege is to reign. De jure, 
it is king among the principles of action, and where it 
is not de facto, there is anarchy and all misrule. It may 
be overborne by lawless passion, worldliness, or premed- 
itated sin, or vicious habit or propensity, but it will 
never abdicate the throne. 

The contest it will never yield ; and if not successful, 
with the agencies which redemption brings to its aid, to 
reclaim the sinner during his probationary season, then 
may he anticipate its bitter reproaches to mingle in the 



350 spirit's influences. 

ingredients of his cup, when the privilege of repent- 
ance is passed. 

The reference to conscience as thus an attribute in 
man, is every where ready and unembarrassed in the 
Scriptures. To those who brought to the Saviour a wo- 
man accused of adultery, he says, " He that is without 
sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And 
they which heard it, being convicted by their own con- 
science, went out, one by one." 

The story of the voluptuous Herod is full of meaning 
on this point. He had foolishly followed in the path- 
way of his passions and vices. He had beheaded John 
Baptist to please a guilty woman. But right reason re- 
volted; his conscience condemned him; he could not 
wholly brave the light and reflection that would harrow 
up his soul, and fill his imagination with sights of ter- 
ror — and he finds a John Baptist in every preacher of 
righteousness he meets. 

The woman of Israel said to Elijah, " O, thou man of 
God, art thou come to call my sin to remembrance, and 
to slay my son ?" And the brethren of Joseph, brought 
into trouble before the governor of Egypt, "said one to 
another, we are verily guilty concerning our brother, in 
that we saw the anguish of his soul and we would not 
hear ; therefore is this distress come upon us." 

5. — The work of the Spirit, in the renewal and sanc- 
tification of the hearts of men, is every way in accord- 
ance with the laws of mind. Its aim is the legitimate 
action of mind, according to its constituent laws; its 
commerce is with reason and truth; its object, the right- 
ful supremacy of conscience ; its direct result in us, our 



spirit's influences. 351 

conscious and responsible action in accordance with the 
highest reason. 

Our prominent metaphysicians have been long in 
arriving at the very obvious conclusion, that the fruit 
of the Spirit is just that which is required of man — that 
his agency is at the point of securing right action in us 
— his work that of influencing to it. This is at length 
conceded, and heralded as a new idea in the science of 
mind,* while the wonder should rather be, that this con- 
ception is of so recent date. But attention has been so 
occupied about tastes and substratums, the imagination 
so spell-bound by the tirne-honored phrases of an anti- 
nomian theology, that we have been wont to exhaust 
the Spirit's work in the business of clearing away the 
obstructions to right action, which have accumulated in 
the mind's history, and which rest upon it, previous to 
conversion. 

The grand misconception has been, that propensity is 
the law of choice — that one must act according to his 
disposition ; or, in popular language, that passion must 
rule ; and that, to secure right action in the soul, you 
must first destroy all the incentives to wrong action 
there. Prevalent doctrine on the subject seems to be, 
that reason and conscience and truth, conducted by the 
Spirit, are of no weight as an antagonist force to pro- 
pensity — that an old and bad propensity or habit or 
passion, is not dislodged by the expulsive power of a 
new and good affection wrought by the Spirit, in the 
commerce of truth with the constituent elements of our 
moral nature, and thus changes effected in the mind on 
* See Bib. Repos. Dr. Woods, 1845 and 6. - 



352 spirit's influences. 

the subject of religion, as they are in respect to other 
subjects. No ; but sinful propensity (says the theory in 
question) must first be cured — the effects of all the 
wrong action of the will be done away, and a new sus- 
ceptibility be lodged in the soul, as a prerequisite to the 
influence of objective truth, and the capability of right 
action in the will, and from which right action there 
shall flow as a matter of course — and this too by a pro- 
cess untold and inscrutable, and in respect to which 
man has neither agency nor consciousness. Here we 
demur, and record our conviction that no change of voli- 
tion, conduct and character, was ever so wrought. 
Adam or the angels could not have turned from holiness 
to sin, by such a process, nor do we from sin to holiness. 
Defection from entire holiness cannot be thus account- 
ed for. The scheme involves the twofold anomaly of a 
sinful propensity before there is sin, and of making 
God the author of that propensity. And yet there is a 
further difficulty in thus accounting for a change of 
volition and character. The theory is utterly suicidal. 
If propensity is the only parent of emotion or volition, 
it surely will beget its like, and change is impossible. 
A being created holy must be always holy, and one 
become sinful always sinful. Angels could never have 
sinned, or Adam apostatized, nor can man repent. If 
propensity is the unyielding law of choice, then charac- 
ter is stereotyped for eternity in the universe. What 
shall change it ? Objective truth cannot, by this theory, 
or any motive-influence from without, and propensity 
will not: its force is in the direction of the past, and 
forever homogeneous in character. What, on this law 



spirit's influences. 353 

of change, could have influenced angels to sin? All 
their history, habits and propensities, for an accumula- 
tion of ages, we know not how long, were on the side 
of holiness. How could they sin. except against propen- 
sity, and through motive-influences otherwise derived ? 
God surely did not deprive them of the benefit of that 
long experience, and arbitrarily annihilate their holy 
propensities, and prove so false to himself as to create 
within them, by some act of inscrutable sovereignty, a 
sinful propensity, which should lay in them the founda- 
tion of wrong action, and change their destiny to des- 
pair. Nor could our first parents have apostatized from 
the motive-influence of propensity. They had always 
been holy. Their history, habits, and inclinations, were 
on the side of a happy obedience ; and propensities are 
not suicidal, if theories are sometimes. How came that 
change ? One thing is certain, the theory we here con- 
trovert^ does not account for it ; and more, the fact 
of such a change, in such circumstances, controverts the 
theory, and scatters it to the winds. 

Changes of mind and character, in the matter of our 
relations to God, doubtless occur, as they do on other 
subjects, so far as the order of process and the philosophy 
of the change are concerned; viz., by the presence- of 
considerations and influences adapted to produce them. 
A change of mental action otherwise wrought, would be 
destitute of intelligence, of intellectual virtue, or moral 
responsibility. 

We are aware that the advocates of the theory here 
qoiui lered, are accustomed to view the fall of Adam 
and the angels as utter mysteries, to which no resort 
23 



354 spirit's influences. 

can be had, and no analogies traced, in investigating 
the laws of mind, and the facts of human history ; and 
that they may be shocked at any reference to those 
apostasies, in treating of the ordinary laws of human 
conduct, as though such reference were quite profane. 
We confess that we have little sympathy with such a dis- 
claimer. Is it so, that a fact " which brought death 
into the world, and all our wo," through which the race 
has lapsed, and needs recovery, is utterly inscrutable ? 
Do either the Bible or enlightened philosophy utter this 
caveat, or is it rather the resort of defective theories, 
and untenable positions in the science of mind ? 

The considerations inducing a change of volition and 
character in the first woman are on record ; and we 
venture to affirm, that no change in the voluntary state 
of the will has since, or ever mil occur, except on 
analogous principles. 

The incipient error in the view we controvert, con- 
sists in identifying propensity with the predominant motive 
in choice; than which a more subtle petitio principii, or 
disastrous confounding of things in themselves distinct, 
does not often occur in investigating the principles of 
mental science. If previously formed propensity is 
identical with what Edwards m6ant by "the greatest 
apparent good," and must be, of course, the dominant 
element of the existent volition or choice, then indeed 
is- there an end of the question, if not of choosing also. 
But such an issue mistakes the relative place of propen- 
sity, disposition, inclination, or desire, as originated 
phenomena of the mind. They are rather its resultant 
than its inceptive states. They are rather the accretions 



spirit's influences. 355 

of its history in the direction of them, than the founda- 
tion of that history; though, when formed, they tend 
to propagate and confirm that history. They follow 
the law of habit, and are broken up in the same way. 
We do not desire that, concerning which we are no 
way informed. The appetite of the drunkard comes by 
the us§ of strong drink; a murderous disposition is the 
result of a training to sights of blood and slaughter — 
and a special propensity of any kind is usually traceable 
to an early history in the direction of it. 

Propensities and biases once originated, doubtless 
have influence on the successive voluntary states of the 
mind. But it is a motive-influence in respect to those 
states — nor is it the only, nor is it, of necessity, the 
strongest motive-influence on the will for the existent 
volition. We are not thus constrained to a continuity 
of voluntary states of mind, in accordance with pre- 
viously indulged propensity. The primary idea in the 
doctrine of choice, involves a contrariety of motives 
before the will, or the liability thereto. The will may 
follow those motives which are antagonistical to habit, 
or long-cherished desire or propensity, innate or ac- 
quired. Objective motives, coming in through the con- 
stituted channels of the mind, act immediately on the 
will, and in the direction of their nature. Whatever 
influence they have, is sui generis : it may be the strong- 
est, and the will is inherently susceptible of being 
moved, and acting either way. In respect to man now, 
propensity, innate or otherwise, constitutes not the only 
ground of choice or motive thereto, nor is the will 
necessarily enslaved to lawless passion. Objective truth 



356 spirit's influences. 

may present its claims ; reason may come in with state- 
ments, arguments and grounds of action, counter to the 
pleadings of propensity and desire ; truth may fasten 
on the conscience, and the Spirit of God strike convic- 
tion into the soul, and thus form a motive to right ac- 
tion which shall outweigh the suggestions of appetite 
and passion, and gain the will against them. 

Change is an attribute of finite beings. They are 
capable of, and liable to change from good to bad, or 
bad to good. This is implied in the doctrine of proba- 
tion, and in all the instructions and motives we use for 
influencing childhood or riper years. Changes occur in 
the minds and courses of men in relation to the matters 
of this life, — in questions of prudence, politics, and 
morals, but always in view of considerations inducing 
them. Thus is it in religion : a man is brought to re- 
pentance, through considerations adapted to produce 
repentance. The commerce of the Holy Spirit is with 
the reason, and conscience, and intelligence .of the soul. 
It has no direct communings with sin or sinful propen- 
sity, but comes in, with the armory of heaven, to help 
the will against their suggestions and motive-influence ; 
as a benevolent agent in aid of reason, and conscience, 
and the truth, and the constituent elements of the soul, 
against sinful propensity and habit, original or acquired, 
and all the incentives to wrong action from the hered- 
itary degeneracy of the race. It comes to give ascen- 
dency to truth, reason and right in the will, and induce 
its action in accordance therewith ; and this, too, though 
it be on the field of strife, and in the presence of induce- 
ments to wrong action, and of the strong biases of 



spirit's influences. 357 

hitherto indulged sin : and thus by the introduction of a 
new, and paramount, and growing life, in accordance 
with the requirement of God, casting out the old man, 
which is corrupt, with his lusts, and gradually and pro- 
gressively gaining an habitual ascendency over all that 
has been wrong in previous history, habit, and propen- 
sity ; and eventually gaining the whole man for God. 
The intimations of consciousness, and the experience of 
Christians, are challenged for the verification of this 
statement ; thus showing that the work of the Spirit is 
in accordance with the laws of mind ; that neither the 
doctrine of responsibility, nor any law of mental action, 
nor change of action as seen elsewhere, is outraged or 
belied in the change which religion contemplates, but 
that its nature and results are analogous to the recorded 
and known history of mind on any other subjects. 

The agency of the Spirit on the depravities of the 
heart is indirect and consequential. By going with the 
truth of God to the constituent elements and suscep- 
tibilities of the mind, and gaining for God the predom- 
inant motive in the will, and the consequent right action 
of the will in repentance, or faith, or love, or whatever 
may be the form of the incipient right affection, volition 
and action, it breaks the empire of sin ; it begins the 
demolition of Satan's throne in the heart. By the 
Spirit's efficient agency, the will acts right in respect to 
God and religion, though it never did before. A new 
and right affection, through divine agency, is born of 
the constituent powers of the mind and will ; a new 
and counter life to the past begins, Which, by the prom- 
ise of God, the law of habit, and the continued agency 



t 
358 spirit's influences. 

of the Spirit, is sustained and prosecuted with increas- 
ing power and triumph against sinful propensity and 
lusts, until at length their lingering influence and effects 
are all uprooted from the soul, and the intended even- 
tual issue of the Spirit is gained in the full and perfect 
man in Christ Jesus. As soon as the first right exercise 
of will occurs, it may be affirmed of the man that he is 
converted, regenerated, born again, and stands to God 
in the relation of a child ; and as soon as the last re- 
mains of sinful appetite and propensity are effectually 
and finally overcome and effaced, and all wrong action 
ceases in the full and uninterrupted energies of the new 
life in Christ, thus begotten and thus sustained, may it 
be said that he is wholly sanctified. 

6. — The work of the Spirit in the premises, is of the 
nature of an influence. Its efficiency is at the point of 
influencing the will, and inducing that voluntary action 
in man, which is of the nature of obedience to God, 
and thus making effectual, upon our intelligent and 
moral nature, the reasons why we should repent, believe 
the Gospel, and obey and please God. The Spirit does 
not repent, believe, or love in our stead. It does not 
detract from, but sustains every way our personal obliga- 
tion, and the character consequent on moral action # 
Repentance, faith, and love, are truly the personal and 
conscious emotions of the sinner returning to God ; yet 
as they never would occur without the Spirit of God, 
and as they do occur under his effectual, successful 
agency or influence, they are properly styled the fruit 
of the Spirit, and the sinner is said to be " born of the 
Spirit," and "the love of God to be shed abroad in his 



spirit's influences. 359 

heart," or he is brought to love God, and to possess the 
graces of the Christian, by the Holy Ghost. While all 
the emotion and voluntary conduct of a moral agent, 
all that in him which is of the nature of obedience or 
disobedience, is personally and responsibly his, he 
may be influenced to it from without. Influences from 
without, from good or bad agents visible or invisible, 
and all contributing in harmony or mingling in conflict 
to form the predominant subjective motive, or ground 
of choice, do not destroy the personality or responsibil- 
ity of that movement of the will. As the mind deter- 
mines itself freely under motive-influence, so is it respon- 
sible for its moral and voluntary states, from whatever 
quarter, and in whatever amount, motive-influence 
comes. We are daily conversant with this principle. 
We hold a man responsible for murder, though, in the 
phraseology of the law, he commits it " under the insti- 
gation of the devil." We take pains to influence our 
fellow-men, and yet hold them responsible for their 
moral action and conduct under the influences thus de- 
rived. Thus, that a man is effectually influenced to 
right action by the gracious economy of the Spirit, sent 
down to his help, contravenes no law of mind, nor sub- 
tracts from his personal responsibility in respect to all in 
him that is of the nature of obedience or disobedience 
to the requirements of God. 

7. — This work of the Spirit is in accordance with the 
truth as revealed in the Scriptures. His agency is co- 
ordinate with the truth of God. His aim and influence 
is to make truth effectual on the voluntary principle in 
men, and to bring them responsibly and cheerfully into 



360 spirit's influences. 

obedience to the requirements of God. We are " be- 
gotten through the gospel." "The word of God" is 
" the sword of the Spirit," and "effectually worketh in 
them that believe." 

8. — The. influences of the Spirit in the premises are 
analogous to influences otherwise derived for the action 
of mind ; they are moral in their nature, and adapted to 
act on the moral susceptibilities of our being. They 
are designed to move the will in accordance with truth ; 
they embody considerations to this end. The instruc- 
tions of nature, of providence, and of revealed truth, 
are brought under contribution by the Spirit for this 
issue. The shining orbs of night, the death of a friend, 
or the faithful appeals of the pulpit in some favored 
moment, may be the honored instrument he uses to 
convict of sin, and challenge the soul for God. The 
process, we may believe, is one inherently adapted to 
move mind, and in accordance with its nature and 
susceptibilities as related to objects and influences from 
without, and which, for want of better phraseology, we 
term moral influence, and not physical. or miraculous — 
an influence indicated and characterized by the nature 
of the work done, and the means of doing it, rather 
than otherwise. 

An emphatic passage, and one throwing much light 
upon the point of the discussion at which we have 
arrived, occurs in John 16 : 8 — " And when he (the 
Spirit) is come, he shall reprove the world of sin, of right- 
eousness, and of judgment ;" and for it we must ask some 
special attention. 

An accurate commentator of our own country (Barnes 



spirit's influences. 361 

in loco) here uses the following language : " The word 
translated i reprove,' means commonly to demonstrate 
by argument, to prove, to persuade any one to do a 
thing by presenting reasons. It hence means also to 
convince of any thing, and particularly to convince of 
crime. This is its meaning here. He will convince or 
convict the world of sin, &c. That is, he will so apply 
the truths of God to men's own minds, as to convince 
them by fair and sufficient arguments that they are sin- 
ners. This is the nature of conviction always." 

So the upright and candid Scott, upon the passage, 
and the general subject of the nature of the Spirit's 
work which it presents: "When He shall come, He 
shall reprove, or rather convince the world of, or con- 
cerning sin, &c. The preposition here, properly signi- 
fies concerning, and this rendering seems to throw much 
light upon the sudject. The principal meaning of the 
word seems to refer," he adds, "to the general internal 
operation of the Holy Spirit on the minds and hearts of 
men, when He leads them to believe in Jesus Christ for 
salvation. He deeply convinces them of many things 
concerning the evil desert of sin, and the sinfulness of 
numberless thoughts, words and actions, and omissions, 
which before they had scarcely thought of; especially he 
detects the sinfulness of their own conduct — their sup- 
posed virtues and their hearts — by discovering the glory 
of God to their souls, showing them their obligations 
and relations to Him, turning their reflections to the 
spirituality of the law — to the hateful nature of trans- 
gression — to their own past lives — to their present be- 
havior, and to their inward thoughts, desires and mo- 



382 spirit's influences. 

tives; and thus the veil of ignorance, pride and par- 
tiality being removed, they are brought without reserve 
to condemn themselves, and to plead guilty before God." 
In similar language he proceeds for more than a column 
of his sensible commentary ; and we have extended the 
quotation- thus far that it may fully appear how this 
subject lay in the mind of a writer so eminently pious 
and practical as was Scott. But every Christian pastor 
who, in revivals of religion, or at other times, has at- 
tended the sinner over that transition period from na- 
ture to grace, can, if he has discriminated at all upon 
the subject, bear the same testimony. Conviction, un- 
der the influence of the Spirit, has at every step been 
intelligent, and in view of truth, and usually deep and 
marked, in proportion to the clearness and distinctness 
of the dispensation of truth under which the subject 
has lived, until it issues in repentance and reconcilia- 
tion to God. At first, perhaps, the fear of wrath has 
awakened the concern of the sinner, and the preroga- 
tives of God troubled his soul. But further thought 
and progress convince him that God is right and His 
claims just, and that his own course must be condemned 
even at the bar of his own conscience. Sin grows more 
sinful in his view, and the record of his delinquencies 
more and more fearful. God, the law, reason, truth, 
conscience, all bring in the verdict of condemnation up- 
on him ; self-righteous hopes disappear, and he stands 
self-condemned and helpless on grounds of law; guilt 
presses on his spirit; and weighed down by a sense of 
sin and ill-desert, and of his utterly hopeless condition 
while out of Christ, he sinks for mercy at the foot of 



spirit's influences. 363 

the cross. As a rational agent, he acknowledges his 
sin, and casts himself on the provision of grace in the 
Gospel. He repents, and from reasons inherently adapt- 
ed to induce repentance : he believes, in view of truths 
appropriate to that affection: he loves God, from the 
apprehension of His loveliness : he submits to God, from 
considerations suited to induce submission. A course 
of right action commences in the will in view of the 
truths which urge it, and in the legitimate exercises of 
the proper functions of his being as a responsible crea- 
ture of God. 

Thus have the phenomena of conversion often pre- 
' sented themselves, and thus must they have fallen under 
the notice of the experienced pastor. 

The process under the conduct of the Spirit is every 
way intelligent and rational ; — open as daylight, as the 
Bible designed it should be, on a subject the most prac- 
tical and important, and the most seriously submitted to 
our individual responsibility and experience, of any with 
which the human mind is conversant ;— and one which 
should not be encumbered with the phraseology of the 
dark ages, to make it utterly enigmatic and unintelligi- 
ble. The change is effected as the mind is changed 
upon any other subject or concern, as to any question in 
mental philosophy appertaining to it. It is through the 
prevalence of considerations suited to it — by gaining 
the predominance of motive thereto, through reason and 
conscience, and the use of truth ; thus gaining over the 
will, and thus securing the voluntary action of the man, 
in the right direction. It is by leading the sinner to do 
just what he ought to do of himself, and just what he 



364 spirit's influences. 

has constituent powers of mind to do; just what his in- 
telligence and the truth call upon him to do, and just 
what he never would do, after all, but for the agency of 
the Spirit sent down in his behalf. The greatness of 
the change, in its fact or results, does not take it out of 
the same category of other changes of mind or will. 
The benevolent economy of the Spirit therein does not 
remove it ; we cannot conceive of an intelligent and re- 
sponsible change otherwise wrought. The Bible and 
common sense place it here. Every exhortation from the 
pulpit and the press, arid all experience together, say it 
is here, and expect the reign of sinful habit and propen- 
sity to be broken up, and their influence and effects to 
be progressively worn from the soul, by the expulsive 
power of a new affection, and the growing energies of 
a new and divine life thus commenced and sustained by 
the Spirit of God. 

We add the following remarks. 

1. — The work of the Spirit, in the department under 
consideration, is> in its nature, resistible by the human mind. 
All moral influences are. This is implied in the very na- 
ture of choice. The privilege of selecting between two 
objects, involves the power of selecting either. Not 
that two and variant volitions can occur at once ; but 
that when two objects or courses of action lie before the 
mind, it can select either. This is the invariable show- 
ing of consciousness. It is involved in our honest con- 
victions concerning responsible action, and no sophistry 
in the world can dislodge the impression. The guilty 
man feels that he need not have committed that deed of 
death, which is to send him to the gallows, but that he 



SPIRIT S INFLUENCES. 365 

had, at the time of willing it, the power of contrary 
choice ; and every attempt you make to convince him 
that he had not, only hardens his heart, or turns the 
reprobations of his outraged conscience back in indig- 
nant scorn upon you, as the apologist of his crimes and 
the tempter to his remorse. 

Power of will correlates not with motive-influence, 
but lies in the intelligence back of it. Motive does not 
create our moral powers, though the condition of their 
exercise. They are the same in the presence or absence 
of motives to influence them. We may not logically 
infer that a man's acts of will, in "the appropriate cir- 
cumstances of his being," could not have been other- 
wise than they have been; — that because he has not 
acted differently, under the motives which have attend- 
ed him, therefore he could not. Modify such a position 
as you will, and it contains the essence of fatalism. It 
is saying, that any sinner who has not repented, could 
not; — that Christians cannot fall from grace, because 
they do not ;— that men cannot be perfect, because they 
are not; — that Adam or the sinning angels could not 
have maintained their integrity, because they did not ; 
nor could the history of any being in the universe be 
otherwise than it has been. It annihilates the discrep- 
ancy between the is and the can be of human conduct. 
But common sense brings in a different verdict on the 
subject. It holds a man competent to do right, what- 
ever may be his temptations to do wrong. Though mo- 
tives run mountain-high to commit murder, it asserts his 
power to withhold his hand ; and every man feels the 
irrepressible conviction, that, in a thousand instances, 



366 spirit's influences. 

situated just as he was, lie could have done differently 
from what he di(J. - This is an integral element in the 
feeling of regret and remorse ; efface it, and you extract 
the anguish of the worm that never dies. No respon- 
sible being was ever placed where he could not do right. 
The power of both right or wrong action is inherently, 
and under all circumstances,, an attribute of all amen- 
able to law. Any man can repent of his wrong, and 
do what reason, conscience and truth require. He can, 
whether he will or no. Deprive him of his power, and 
he is no longer a moral agent. The discipline of child- 
hood is on this principle ; — the laws of society and the 
laws of God. The existence of such a power is pre- 
supposed in every effort to induce its exercise, on the 
part of our earthly or immortal relations. It is the in- 
telligent basis of the Spirit's influences, and of all v pre- 
sentation of motives for obedience to law, or conformity 
with God. The conventional distinction asserted, be- 
tween natural and moral power, has been of little avail 
with the practical convictions of men. The biblical 
phraseology from which this distinction may have de- 
rived its origin, does not sustain it, as a generic classifi- 
cation of science, in your occidental languages. - The Sav- 
iour, in undoubted reference to the subject in hand, said, 
"Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life." 
Convince any unlettered man that he has not power to 
repent of sin and do right, and you do but undermine his 
sense of obligation to repent and do right. Consistency 
teaches him that he may as well repent, as take accepta- 
bly any incipient steps thereto, and that all exhortation 
is misplaced, if he may not do just what God requires. 



spirit's influences. 367 

. On the principle above elucidated we as'sert, that 
power of will does not correlate with moral influence, 
and of course not with the work of the Spirit in con- 
version. A man is converted not because he cannot re- 
sist the Spirit, but because he voluntarily yields to his 
influences. A Christian makes progress in sanctifi ca- 
tion, not because he cannot "grieve the Spirit," and has 
not temptations thereto ; but because he freely follows 
the leadings of the Spirit. Some are referred to in the 
Bible, as those who "do always resist the Holy Ghost:" 
believers are exhorted not to grieve the Holy Spirit, and 
all warned of the sin against the Holy Ghost concern- 
ing which there is no forgiveness. 

The classification of the Spirit's work in the theology 
of men, into common and special influences, has arisen 
out of the effects produced of success with the sinner in 
the one case, and the failure of it in the other. 

This supposed distinction assumes that all cases are 
of equal obduracy, or that the Spirit's influence cannot 
be increased in amount without being different in kind ; 
but of neither alternative is there proof. Facts, under 
the ministration of the gospel, look the other way; and 
the Saviour says, " Woe unto thee, Chorazin ! woe unto 
thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works which were 
done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they 
would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and 
ashes." So also, in the philosophic language of Luke, 
"The seed is the word; those by the way-side are they 
that hear; then cometh the devil and taketh away the 
word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and 
be saved." . 



368 , spirit's influences. 

The purposes of God, touching the formation of mor- 
al character and its issues, are accomplished, not by- 
irresistible and irresponsible influences, but in the com- 
pass of a probationary providence, which secures des- 
tined results consistently with the laws of mind, and its 
voluntary and responsible action. 

2. — The doctrine of the Spirit does not disparage the 
use of appropriate means, for giving success to objective 
truth, on the minds of men, but stands in intelligent 
connection and correspondence with them. 

All the laws of influencing the will, are in as full play, 
on the subject of religion, as on any other whatever. 
The superadded and benevolent economy of the Spirit 
does not confound and embarrass them, but is a helper 
to all, co-ordinate and direct. A sound mind and a 
good heart in the preacher — wide research and accurate 
theology — fair logic and cogent reasoning, making full 
use of the truth — acceptable words and happy illustra- 
tions — good rhetoric, and a wise regard to time, place, 
and circumstances — defined aims, and a judicious and 
skilful use of the appropriate means of conviction — 
striving after just that in the hearer which God requires, 
depending on the co-operating agency of the Spirit, in 
direct and immediate connection with the truth uttered, 
and the effort made. 

Lack of expectation unnerves the efforts of the 
preacher ; an impression of the fortuitous presence of 
the Spirit neutralizes his engagedness. He is tempted 
to regard the dispensation of the truth in the light of a 
merely positive institution, and as having no inherent 
and intelligent connection with the results it contem- 



spirit's influences. 369 

plates, and to administer the word at the required sea- 
son, hoping that, as God has said it, he will at some 
period, and in some inappreciable way, dispose of the 
old propensity in the hearer, and " implant" a new one, 
and thus give him " an ability" to be influenced by the 
considerations presented. This antinomian dependence 
on the Spirit extracts all vitality from the pulpit, and all 
sense of direct responsibility to truth from the hearer, 
and reduces the administration of the word to an 
ordinance which is but one remove from the " genu- 
flexions" and "baptismal regenerations" of the utter 
formalist in religion. Truth, in such relations, is shorn 
of the intrinsic value conceded to it on other subjects ; 
the laws of conviction are outraged, and results antici- 
pated in no intelligent connection with means used or 
light received. 

3. — The pulpit should hold intimate conmunion with 
the reason and conscience. They are God's image in 
man. They are of right the reigning principles of the 
soul, and the great effort should be to make them so in 
fact. They accord with objective truth in religion, and 
are its medium of access to the will. They endorse the 
requisitions of law, and are the handmaids of the Spirit 
in our submission to God. It is through their commerce 
with truth that he gains over the voluntary principle in 
us, against the pleadings of propensity and all the 
strong impulses of our previous history, and brings us 
under law to Christ. Conviction of sin is a direct and 
befitting feeling, in accordance with the light in the 
understanding. Penitence, faith, love, and all right 
affections, occur through the truth brought to the intel- 
24 



370 spirit's influences. 

ligence of the soul. That preaching will do little good 
which does not commend itself to the conscience of the 
hearer. It may be sentimental and imaginative ; it may 
cater to the passions of men ; it may strive to quadrate 
its arguments with the element of selfishness in them, 
but it will be like David in the armor of Saul, it will 
not stir the giant principles of the soul which correlate 
with truth, obligation, and obedience, or be much 
honored of the Spirit in the conversion of men to 
Christ. Leviathan is not so tamed. The perfections 
of God, His righteousness, the unyielding features of 
His moral government, and the cross of Christ as sus- , 
taining the claims of law and justice, while it provides 
a method of recovery, must be taken to the reason and 
conscience of the sinner, and reliance, under God, be 
placed here, for gaining the ascendency in the will, and 
inducing the obedience which the gospel requires. As 
gin consists in the wrong action of this faculty, so does 
virtue in its right action as guided by reason and truth 5 
and the position of 'Dr. Taylor is sustained by conscious- 
ness, when in the controversy with Dr. Spring he says, 
in substance, that regeneration takes place in the honest 
and right use of the faculties of the mind, and that the 
conversion and return of the sinner to God is character- 
ized by the exercise of the legitimate principles of His 
being, although the statement is encumbered with cer- 
tain views on the subject of self-love not needfully con- 
nected with it. 

4. — The conversion of sinners should be no matter 
of marvel. This event should not be placed among the 
miraculous and unaccountable dispensations of God, or 



spirit's influences. 371 

movements of the human mind. The view often given 
of this matter is too recondite and enigmatical for com- 
mon apprehension. It is too much wrapt up in the 
abstruse web of a technical theology, to be understood 
or appreciated in the ordinary walks of life. For fear 
of Scylla We strike on Charybdis. We would not be 
thought to hold fellowship with Arminius, and we sink 
in the lethean waters of antinomianism. 

The subject is, however, a practical one. God com- 
mends it to the understanding, responsibility, and ex- 
perience of men. Why should the return of the sinner 
to God be deemed a strange phenomenon, admitting of 
no intelligent solution from the usual laws of the human 
mind ? Change of conduct and character we know to 
be incidental to finite beings. Entirely holy beings 
have become sinful, and why should it be thought un- 
accountable that entirely sinful beings should become 
holy % The Saviour evidently viewed the new birth as 
a first truth in religion — one of those earthly things so 
obviously intuitive as to be even to the Jew no matter 
of marvel. True, the influences of the Spirit involved 
therein are impalpable, but are easily traced, like the 
wind of the desert, by the effects produced. The re- 
pentance of a sinner is, indeed, the highest reason. It 
is a responsible creature breaking off from his sins — 
ceasing to do wrong, and beginning to do right, from 
appropriate considerations, made effectual thereto by 
the super-added and benevolent dispensation of the 
Spirit. The occurrence of the first right affection is no 
more unintelligible than that of the fifth or seventh. 
The recovery of the sinner is no more marvellous than 



372 spirit's influences. 

that of the backslider. The occurrence of a new affec- 
tion is through the operation of the same laws of mind, 
as the recurrence of an old and suspended one. The 
difference is rather one of degrees. The total eclipse 
of the sun is of the same nature as his partial eclipse, 
and from the same cause ; the illumination of a sphere, 
like that of any part of it ; the commencing twilight of 
the morning, like the full-orbed day. So the beginning 
of holiness, in the experience of a man, is of the same 
economy with his progressive sanctification and eventual 
perfectness in Christ. 

5 — On the principles of this article impenitent men 
are intelligently held obligated to do just that which God 
requires. To preach defect of power and susceptibility, 
does but deaden a sense of obligation to right action. — 
The mind has in some way to recover itself from the 
opiate administered, before it regains its wonted feeling 
of accountableness to the statements of objective truth. 
Exhortations from the quarter here referred to, usually 
have little respect from the impenitent portion of a con- 
gregation. ' They are regarded as rather the pastime of 
the hour, or the professional exorcisms of the pulpit, 
than as really intended for what the words import ; and 
make but little impression, from their incompatibility 
with the known sentiments of him who utters them on 
kindred subjects. 

The helplessness of man comes rather from the direc- 
tion of his relations to law and government, than of his 
defective powers. " It was when we were without 
strength that in due time Christ died for the ungodly'' 
The remedy of the gospel is here put in contrast with 



' spirit's influences. 873 

the claims of law. It was man, as the victim of violated 
law — powerless in the grasp, and under the curse of 
avenging justice — that Christ came to redeem, and not 
as one bereft of the attributes of a responsible being. 

The pulpit should not shrink from covering the full 
ground of the sinner's responsibility. It must not 
advise the sinner to that which falls short of an essential 
and radical change of character and relationship to God, 
on the principle that he must do as well as he can under 
the old disposition and propensity, until new susceptibil- 
ities are given him, from which he can act right. It 
must not instruct him to read his Bible, and go to 
church, and pray for a new heart, on the ground that 
he cannot now repent, and in penitence obey God, and 
thus without more delay have a new heart, He must 
not be counselled to go on in the use of appointed 
means, " waiting for converting grace ;" this would but 
quiet his conscience, and throw the responsibility of the 
issue elsewhere than on himself. . No, let him cease to 
resist the Spirit, and obey truth and his conscience, and 
he will be saved the trouble of " waiting for converting 
grace" — a phrase which misplaces all the relations of the 
subject. Never may it be said that the sinner waits for 
• God in the issue here contemplated. His remaining a 
moment longer impenitent is his sin ; it is in resistance 
of reason, of the dictates of his own intelligence, of the 
authority of heaven, and of that very provision of grace 
which is appointed to reclaim him from his sins. To 
advise him to any thing short of repentance, or to what 
does not involve it, on the ground that he cannot and 
ought not at once to comply with the essential require- 



374 spirit's influences. 

ments of God to repent and believe the gospel, is only 
to take his part in his sins — to change rebuke to pity, 
and lose sight of the features of his sinfulness, in a 
morbid apprehension ol the physical disabilities and 
•calamity of his position. 

The man who can pray can repent. He that can ac- 
ceptably ask God to change his heart, can have any 
other right affection, and yield to that " Spirit of grace" 
who has long, it may be, been striving to bring him to> 
repentance, saying, " This is the way, walk ye therein." 

Let requisition, then, cover the full ground of the sin- 
ner's responsibilities. Let him be advised to rest in no 
half-way house to the city of refuge; but at once, in 
the use of appointed means, to be a penitent man, and 
possess the feelings and be of the temper which God re- 
quires, and to which truth and conscience prompt. Of 
this is he constituency capable ; in nothing short of this 
Avill conscience be satisfied, and in the very attitude of 
compassing this, as required, does he comply with the 
movings of the Spirit — cease to resist his influence, and 
yield to the helps from above in his behalf. All the an- 
alogies of truth and claims of God are pointing him to 
this spot, and why should not the agencies of his moral 
being be concentrated upon it? To bring him to it, and 
for the issue decided here, the Spirit is striving with him ; 
and why should he be turned aside by counsels which 
meet not the exigency of his case, and which may be 
complied with, and he yet remain in sin, and without 
forgiveness? Why should he be instructed to rest for 
a moment in any thing short of those affections of pen- 
itence, submission, confidence and love, which are the 



spirit's influences. 375 

fruit of the Spirit, before which there is nothing right 
in the state of the affections, and in which are contained 
the first essential elements of return to God — the very- 
inception of a state of mind and character which meets 
the terms of forgiveness and reconciliation? As the 
Spirit's influences bear upon this point, as no change of 
character occurs, and nothing effectual is done until this 
is gained, why not hold the attention of the sinner here, 
and count him as an alien and an enemy, resisting the 
Spirit and persisting in his wrong, and accumulating 
guilt until he yields here, and in penitence, and like a 
child, submits ? Instruction short of this mistakes the 
real issue in his case, tends to embarrass his approach 
to the mercy-seat, and baffle the work of the S]Dirit in 
his behalf. 

6. — This discussion helps to develope the philosophy 
of revivals of religion. The disciples were daily, with 
one accord, in the temple, and in breaking of bread from 
house to house at the Pentecost. Revivals take ad- 
vantage of the social principle in man. They are usual- 
ly promoted by the consecutive and continuous preach- 
ing of the word ; by efforts to absorb the public atten- 
tion of a congregation, an J. getting the public con- 
science of a community in habitual contact with the 
doctrines and claims of divine truth. The Spirit's work 
is according to the laws of mind, and the success of the 
word, on the generic principle of success in respect to 
any other public and general object. Christians must 
unite in it with a suitable spirit of dependence, prayer- 
fulness and activity. False gods must be put away out 
of Zion, and truth must have free access to the minds 



6 ib SPIRIT S INFLUENCES. 

of men, and they be brought to habitual and unembar- 
rassed consideration of the high behests of religion. 

7. — The failure of revivals is not to be attributed to 
the sovereign withholding of the influences of the Spirit 
of God. The reasons of " Zion's captivity" are on earth, 
and not in heaven. The hinderances ?re here, or from 
satanic instigation ; they lie in the church, in the min- 
istry, in the diversion of the public mind, or some de- 
fective use of the means appointed of God for salvation, 
or more success would attend the word, and more hearts 
submit. Some special obstacle is in the way often, some 
secret Achan in the camp, or some open and sanctioned 
iniquity, which obstructs the word and causes it to be- 
come unprofitable. On the part of Heaven, all is ready 
— ever ready. We know not how to understand the 
character of God, and the grand features of the econo- 
my of grace, if this be not so. The parables of Christ, 
and the instruction of apostles, announce this truth: 
the standing invitations of the gospel contain it. 

We would give emphasis to this statement, and say 
again, that the failure of the word is to be viewed from 
the direction of the obstructions of earth, and not of 
the inscrutable purpose and will of Heaven. There are 
laws of moral influence, and they obtain in relation to 
this subject : let them be complied with, and results will 
follow, such as the gospel contemplates and Pentecost 
witnessed. The parable of the sower presents this truth 
in happy contrast with that sentiment of dependence 
which resolves the want of success in the administra- 
tion of the word, and the dearth of revivals, into the 



SPIRIT S INFLUENCES. 



37 > 



issue, that "the time is not come to build the house of 
the Lord." 

8. — Resistance of the Spirit is a prominent sin of 
Christendom. " To apply the merits of the redemption 
purchased by Christ," is the office-work of the Spirit. 
The New Testament refers to Him as an abiding agent 
with the means of grace, and, for aught that is known. 
His presence may be co-extensive with the application 
of those means. Few, it is believed, pass through pro- 
bation, under the light of the gospel, without sharing 
His influences. . Few go on to a state of confirmed in- 
iquity, and are given up of God to the way of their own 
heart, and to the condemnation to which it leads, with- 
out "resisting the Holy Ghost," and impinging on this 
ultimate provision of mercy. Multitudes, now in their 
sins, would before this have been rejoicing in Christ, but 
for the abuse of conscience, and " doing despite to the 
Spirit of grace." The Saviour sublimely prefigures the 
idea we would present, in His apostrophe to Jerusalem : 
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! how. often would I have 
gathered thy children together, and ye would not: be- 
hold, your house is left unto you desolate." 

Finally. — The doctrine of the Spirit is the grand en- 
couragement of the minister of the gospel in "commend- 
ing himself, through manifestation of the truth, to every 
man's conscience in the sight of God" 

Truth, conscience, and the Spirit's influence, are cor- 
relates, in respect to the issue, termed conversion. With- 
out the truth, there would be no intelligence in it; with-' 
out the moral sense, no responsibility would attach to 
it, and without the Spirit, it would never be effected. 



378 spirit's influences. 

Truth is the instrument, and conscience the medium of 
the Spirit's influence in changing the will, and securing 
in it, and in human experience, all that redemption con- 
templates. Sanctification is " through the truth ;" con- 
viction is conviction of it in the conscience, and con- 
version is the first right movement of the will in view 
of it. Such is the state of man in sin ; so many and 
prevalent the counter influences of propensity and habit, 
that this movement of will is never secured as the un- 
aided result of truth, manifested to the concsience. The 
merciful economy of the Spirit supervenes ; the promise 
of God and the hope of Zion are associated with the 
co-operating and effectual agency of the Holy Ghost, 
with the means divinely appointed. Even this ultimate 
provision of mercy will be resisted by many of our race, 
the acme of whose guilt and condemnation will be, that 
they have not only " trodden under foot the Son of God, 
but have done despite unto the Spirit of grace." "Nev- 
ertheless the foundation of God standeth sure." All 
will not resist the Spirit. Multitudes have been, and 
multitudes more will be begotten of Him through the 
truth. The word of God shall accomplish that where- 
unto He sends it, and an innumerable company, which 
no man can number, return and come to Zion with songs, 
and everlasting joy on their heads. 



THESES IN THEOLOGY. 379 



FOURTEEN THESES ; OR, OUTLINES OF THEOLOGY, 



THESES IN THEOLOGY. I. 

In this age of rapid movements, crude opinions and 
surface work, there are yet those that think, that inquire 
after the philosophy of religious belief — that would gain 
the first truths of reason, and reconcile therewith the 
statements of theology and the doctrines of the Church. 

1st. Theology is moral science in the department of 
religion. 

2d. It is embraced in the three categories, — the In- 
finite, the finite, and the relation between them. 

I— The Being of God. 

1st. Something is. — (Proof) — (1) The senses ; (2) con- 
sciousness; (3) universal conviction and consent. 

2d. Something always was. — The derived implies the 
underived; the created the uncreated; the finite and 
dependent, the absolute and independent. 

3d. Original of being, not matter. — Matter not inher- 
ently cause — has a reason for being, and being in one 
place rather than another — is dependent ; a thing placed ; 
is in itself without design or end. 

4th. Original of being, spiritual, personal intelligence 



380 THESES IN THEOLOGY. 

— the "I Am," of the Bible. Intelligence is cause per 
se; it only is cause; acts from design; has an end in 
what it does. This is true of derived intelligence — much 
more of the underived. 

oth. Knowledge has a chronological method and a log- 
ical method. We are, therefore God is. The being of 
God is pre-supposed and known in the being of anything 
else. It must be that God is, if anything is. 

6th. We may know that that is, which we cannot com- 
prehend — hence may know God, and that He is, though 
not able to comprehend the Infinite. 

7th. It is not to be expected that derived intelligence 
will comprehend the underived; the law of knowledge 
is by analogy. 

8th. If the finite, created, is only by the Infinite, un- 
created, then is the Being of God the complement of 
all knowledge and thought, and God is all His works. 

THE PERFECTIONS OF GOD. II. 

Both physical and moral are infinite. 

1st. If not infinite, then is He finite, limited, created, 
dependent, and then not God. 

2d. Rectitude is the moral state and method of all in- 
telligence. 

3d. Infinite, personal intelligence, could not act legit- 
imately or satisfactorily to itself except rightly, and ac- 
cording to truth. 

4th. Moral wrong is only by defection from right — 
is by way of apostasy ; — in God is no ground of change. 

5th. Sin is a mistake as well as a mislead, and as such 
could not be predicable of the Infinite, or be of the na- 
ture of intelligent action in Him. 



THESES IN THEOLOGY. 381 

6th. Malevolence is never an end. Sin has the real 
sanction and subsidy of no mind, as that which is in it- 
self desirable. It is never chosen for its own sake : — the 
vilest are ashamed of it, seen in its true light and un- 
der the testimony of conscience. 

7th. Onr constituent being "made in the image of 
God." repudiates wrong — "the law in the mind," as con- 
trasted, with "the law in the members." 

8th. The Jehovah of the Scriptures, with all perfec- 
tion of knowledge, of power, of wisdom, goodness, and 
truth, and every attribute of the uncreated, absolute, 
One, infinitely and immutably. 

Infs. — 1st. The Divine economy is pure audi perfect 
in all morality. 

2d. All imperfection, and wrong and ill, is through 
the abuse of that which in its normal method and on- 
going, is right and good. 

3d. Sin is in the finite, and is resultant of the abnor- 
mal action and movements of finite cause. 

4th. The Judge of all the earth will do right. 

5th. We ought to have unlimited confidence in the 
wisdom, rectitude, and faithfulness of God. 

THE WORKS OF GOD. III. 

1st. A quiescent Deity is a solecism. God is an in- 
telligence — a cause — a power : He will have forthgoings 
and work. 

. 2d. A work is of necessity in the finite. It is some- 
thing done — a factum, a reason for it, and a cause of it 
lie out of, and before it. It has time, and place, and all 
the accidents of the finite. 

3d. The forthgoings and work of God will be the re- 



382 THESES IN THEOLOGY. 

suit of His perfections, and truly represent them — their 
cast, and design, and method, and scheme, and end, will 
be such as a Being of perfect rectitude can approve. 

4th. The work of God, so far as known to us, or ap- 
preciative by us, will be in the physical and moral 
spheres — matter and mind — nature and spirit — things 
and persons — irresponsible existence and responsible, 
intelligent beings. 

5th. The physical sphere will be in subordination to 
the moral or spiritual, and for its sake, and adapted to 
its development and behests. 

6th. A moral system or sphere, with intelligent be- 
ings in the likeness and after the image of God, is a 
perfect work. Nothing else could be better, or be in 
its place, for this is like God, and truly resultant of His 
perfections, and its moral ongoing must manifest Him 
and be worthy of Him. 

7th. Such a system, including God and all other in- 
telligences, is inherently an end in itself, and the high- 
est end. 

8th. It Is unreason to ask anything else in the place 
of such a system. 

Inferences : — 1st. The present not a choice of systems, 
as though embodying on the whole the fewest evils and 
the most good. Such a category would put God into 
the finite. His economy is a perfection and not a bal- 
ancing of expedients. It is rectitude, and any imper- 
fection in it, would ruin it for Him and render it un- 
worthy of Him. 

2d. All evil originates in the infraction of the Divine 
economy, and moral evil is the parent of all other evil. 



THESES IN THEOLOGY. 383 

3d. No good reason can be given, or need be attempt- 
ed, for the existence of wrong. 

4th. The existence of moral evil is not to be resolved 
in a theistic argument, and no vindication of the char- 
acter of God is called for in relation %o it. 

5th. Sin is in every respect antagonistical to God — 
to His purposes, and end in all things, and implies the 
righteousness and pefection of His being, economy, and 
ways. 

MORAL PRINCIPLES THE CO-ORDINATE OF MORAL BEING. IV. 

1st. Moral principles inhere in moral relations. 

2d. Like all mere qualities they must inhere in some 
ground, and that ground is moral beings; they imply 
and have personality. 

3d. The relations of the Infinite and the finite involve 
and evoke them. Worship and obedience are not more 
an appointment of God than the demand of our being 
and a meet response from the relations subsisting be- 
tween us and Himself. God appoints them, and in- 
structs us in respect to them, because they are in them- 
selves meet and due. 

4th. A Divine revelation to us would be of the nature 
of a manifestation to the principles of being in us, and 
on the ground of the relations subsisting between us 
and God. 

5th. The Bible has its doctrinal basis in the elements 
of all truth, growing out of the being and relations of 
the Infinite and the finite — penitence as related to for- 
giveness — equivalents, the doctrine of commerce — the 
conscience attesting the obligation of Divine precepts. 

6th. A revelation from God is information from the 



384 THESES IN THEOLOGY. 

depths of the Infinite, on principles of truth recognized 
in our being and inherent relations to God. 

7th. From the nature of the intelligence, sin wounds 
the conscience— it would if in the Infinite as well as in 
the finite. " That be far from Thee to slay the right- 
eous with the wicked. Shall not the Judge of all the 
earth do right?" 

8th. Natural ill is inherently consequent on moral 
wrong. It is not so much by overt appointment as in- 
herent connection, from the nature and relations of the 
intelligence. 

9th. God modifies and uses this relation of natural ill 
to moral wrong, for purposes of probation, and all ends 
in righteousness in a moral system. 

10. Retribution is naturally and cumulatively conse- 
quent on sin and probation. 

Hence, — 1st. The Bible and reason are not in disa- 
greement. 

2d. Natural religion is a stepping-stone to that which 
is revealed. 

3d. Revelation is exegetical of natural religion. 

4th. Objective truth has its prototypes in the ideas of 
the reason. 

5th. All Divine precepts are adapted to our moral 
being and inherently obligatory. 

THESES IN THEOLOGY. V. 

The Purposes of God. 

I. — Purposes are a mental state or determination of 
mind, antecedent to, and conditional for an action of 
the agent purposing. 

II. — The purposes of God are His mental determina- 



THESES IN THEOLOGY. 385 

tions, concerning His own work, or of what He will do. 
1st. This is a universal law of intelligence. One pur- 
poses his own conduct, and what influence to exert on 
others in behalf of objects desirable to him. 

2d. A purpose, like a conception, is necessarily orig- 
inal, and personal in the mind that has it. Two indi- 
viduals may have like purposes in relation to the same 
object, but then their purposes are distinct, and it is 
every way unphilosophical to hold them as identical, 
and to say that one purposes the purposes of the other. 

3d. Free, original thought, and design, and voluntary 
action are the characteristic and law of mind. It is so 
in the Infinite; jt is so in those intelligences "made in 
His image." 

4th. God secures desired ends through a scheme and 
providence of His own, and "according to the counsel 
of His own will;" meeting, antagonizing with, or ac- 
cepting the action, or plans, or purposes of others, as 
may seem best to Him — His thoughts are not their 
thoughts, nor their ways His — by " bringing light out 
of darkness and order out of confusion," &c. 

5th. In this way is the glory of God secured, as re- 
lated to the machinations and work of wicked agents — 
not by planning their plans and purposing their pur- 
poses — but through a plan and purpose of His own, cir- 
cumventing, overruling, and defeating them, and bring- 
ing good out of evil. 

6th. That philosophy is unsound and fallacious which 
prescribes a Divine programme, and ordination of all 
that is, in the responsible, moral sphere. 
25 



386 THESES IN THEOLOGY. 

7th. We know that much is, in the responsible, moral 
sphere, that God does not will, or devise, or want. 

8th. We see no need of God's willing or ordaining 
moral wrong in order for it to be : it is essentially anti- 
theistic. 

9th. Physical ills, as resultant of moral wrong, may 
be Divinely modified and used for good. 

10th. The purposes of God are in accordance with all 
morality, and appreciably so. 

11th. Resignation to evils, which are consequent on 
wrong received, springs not so properly from the fact 
that they take place, as from the overruling and recu- 
perative agency and influence of God, in our behalf, re- 
specting them. 

12th. The purposes of God are equivalent to, and 
identical with an ever-p?*esent discretion in righteousness, 
in the sphere of the Infinite. 

Hence, — 1st. There is unity of being and of charac- 
ter in God. 

2d. There is an appreciable morality in God. 

3d. The pure and holy Jesus was a truthful manifes- 
tation of God. 

4th. Our theology need'not stumble, or be perplexed 
at the doctrine of the purposes of God. 

5th. No good reason need be attempted for the in- 
ception of moral wrong. 

6th. Sin is every way without excuse. 

7th. The decrees of God are no bar to prayer. They 
are but the righteous decisions of One who abides ever 



THESES IN THEOLOGY. 387 

in the present, to minister to the wants of His creatures, 
and answer those who cry unto Him. 

THESES IN THEOLOGY. VI. 

Mind Inherently Cause and Self-Controlled. 

1st. This is true of the Divine Mind, by universal 
concession. 

2d. Finite intelligence is made in the Divine likeness. 

3d. This is the doctrine of consciousness. 

4th. This is essential to personality. 

5th. This is essential to responsibility. 

6th. This is the doctrine of law, of probation, and 
penalty, as applied to intelligent beings. 

7th. This is admitted in the propositions of mercy. 

8th. This is involved in all exhortation, all submission 
of truth for practical purposes, in all discipline, rewards, 
and punishments. Why exhort to that which cannot 
be withheld, or which is already in your own power ? 

9th. This is of the very element of ivill, as contra-dis- 
tinguished from the necessitated faculties of mind. 

Hence, — 1st. The sovereignty of our voluntary states 
is with ourselves. * 

2d. All influences from without, and means of mov- 
ing mind, are submitted to its arbitrament, and discre- 
tion, and responsibility, as to the response we give. 

3d. The finite can resist and disobey the Infinite, and 
often does. 

4th. That may be, which God does not will, and as 
He is of one mind, which He has never willed or de- 
termined. 

5th. It is irrelevant to inquire why God has not pre- 
vented all sin and wrong. 



388 THESES IN THEOLOGY. 

6th. A moral economy may, in probation, but imper- 
fectly accomplish the will of God. 

7th. Probation has a natural result in retribution. 

8th. God may never regain in all hearts, and see His 
will done in all minds ; He will never have the spiritual 
control of the finally impenitent and lost ones. 

9th. The question of power, or almightiness in God, 
is out of place when applied to the coercion or absolute 
control of the will in His intelligent creatures. 

10th. All Gospel influences are resistible by the mind. 

11th. These influences may nevertheless prevail, and 
yet increasingly, "in the ages to come," and the world 
be converted to Christ. 

12th. Men may repent, as they ought, when they can 
hold out in impenitence, as others do. 

13th. Moral government has an eventual resort, in 
physical force, in respect to those who refuse compli- 
ance with its righteous dictates. God fixes the physical 
condition of the finally impenitent and lost, but their 
wills will never be under His control, or be as He would 
have them to \g. 

THESES rN THEOLOGY. VII. 

The method of the Deity, in all his works, is a pure 
righteousness, and every way consistent with the first 
principles of morality. 

1st. He is an infinitely perfect, spiritual being. 

2d. His contrast, and great ultimate end, must be 
worthy of Him, self-satisfactory to Himself, and morally 
like Himself. 

3d. His object must be the greatest righteousness of 
His intelligent creatures, and their highest moral likeness 



THESES IN THEOLOGY. 389 

to Himself, and the greatest good as therein contained. 

4th. Any dereliction from this on the part of His in- 
telligent offspring must incur His rebuke and displeas- 
ure as contrary to His will, and a disruption of His 
method and design in all His works. 

5th. The manifestations of the Deity on the actual 
outbreak of wrong, on the part of angels and men, and 
His position in respect to sin ever since, evince this. 

6th. A method or plan of things is for the sake of 
its execution, and is nugatory and worthless without it. 

7th. A method or plan of things has the moral qual- 
ity of its execution. 

8th. God would institute no method or plan of things 
whose execution He could not approve. The outbreak 
of sin would complicate the Divine relations to wrong, 
and the methods of God's antagonism to it, but an orig- 
inal, Divine economy will be pure in all righteousness. 

9th. Sin, as a device, is essentially anti-theistic, and 
could be no part of a Divine plan or economy of things. 

10th. Any propositional relation to sin in the Divine 
scheme of the universe would be suicidal in God, and 
could not meet the approval of intelligences made in 
His image. 

11th. No such relation to wrong in a scheme of things, 
could be imitated by those made in the image of God, 
without incurring His displeasure and rebuke. 

12th. Such a relation would involve the absurdity, that 
there can be a good reason for an intrinsic wrong. 

13th. And also, that wrong, whenever and wherever 
it occurs, is better than right. Hence, 



390 THESES IN THEOLOGY. 

14th. That wrong as it exists is the best thing pos^j 
sible and therefore is not wrong. 

15th. We are instructed to be followers of God as 
dear children, but cannot without self-condemnation, 
imitate Him, in a scheme of things, which devises and 
plans that which is morally wrong. 

16th. Our constituent moral being, which is like that 
of God, repudiates a wrong method, as much as a wrong 
act. 

17th. Sin cannot be a Divine expedient, — James i. 
12-17, — God cannot be tempted with evil. 

18th. If God ordains moral evil, it must be for a good 
reason, which involves a palpable solecism. 

19th. If God ordains wrong, then is wrong needful 
in a right system, and a right system is defective and 
imperfect without it, and wrong is necessary to a per- 
fect moral system, and a part of it, and is therefore not 
a wrong. 

20th. If God ordains wrong, it is out of preference 
to its being, to anything else in its place, and where 
wrong is, he prefers it to right, and chooses moral evil 
there to moral good, and if so, then is there no unity or 
determination of moral character in God. Hence, 

Inferences: — 1st. Sin does not ask God's leave to be. 

2d. Sin has not God's permission or consent to be. 

THESES IN THEOLOGY. VIII. 

A moral system is a perfect work, and a Divine ne- 
cessity, though sin and wrong are an inherent liability 
under it. 

I. — It is a perfect work. 

1st. It is the work of an Infinite and perfect Being. 



THESES IN THEOLOGY. 391 

2d. It is in the end of a universal and perfect righte- 
ousness, and capable of it. 

3d. Its crowning work and reason are intelligent be- 
ings, "in the image of God," and for this end, and 
adapted to it. 

4th. It gives a true and proper personality, like that 
of God. 

5th. It involves a legitimate and proper responsibility 
and destiny. 

6th. It furnishes, subjectively and objectively (within 
and without,) all requisite grounds, for perfect excellence 
of character and state. 

7th. Nothing else, or other than such a system, made 
in the likeness of God, and for such an end, could be, 
without being imperfect, and being unworthy of God.. 
And hence, 

II. — A moral system as above, is in some sense a Di- 
vine necessity. It has the perfect freedom and whole 
soul of the Deity in its behalf as nothing else or otherwise 
could have. Nothing different would be of the nature of 
intelligent action in God. Right intelligence for a right 
end is the sphere and true expression of the infinite, and 
of a Divine economy in the finite and created of being. 

1st. Finite mind acts often on defective or imperfect 
promises, and many be mistaken ; God never. 

2d. Finite mind may, through change and inconsis- 
tency, get at fault with truth, and right, and God, and 
come to hate and resist Him ; but God never. 

3d. Infinite intelligence can see no reason against 
truth and right, or for sin and wrong, and must ever be 



392 THESES IN THEOLOGY. 

of one spirit and one mind for the eternal rectitude of 
a moral system. 

III. — Sin and wrong an inherent liability under moral 
government or in a moral system. 

1st. A moral system has free cause in the finite. 

2d. A power to do right is a power to do wrong, and 
in the finite the alternative may become an actuality. 

3d. A moral system involves the legitimate and proper 
submission of the question of right and wrong, of char- 
acter and destiny, and would be a worthless pageant 
without it. 

4th. Its central idea is the discretion and responsibil- 
ity of free intelligence and will. 

5th. Its vitality, excellence and glory, lie in this, that 
its righteousness is not imposed and inevitable, but elec- 
tive, and in the place of something else that might be, 
and which would be wrong. 

6th. All personality involves this, and would be re- 
duced to mere tiling without it. 

7th. All conscious responsibility is based on this, and 
is impossible without it. 

8th. We are conscious, only, of moral, resistible in- 
fluences, in relation to conduct and character, conform- 
ity or the want of it, to righteousness and law. 

9th. It cannot be proved that any other influences in 
this regard exist, or are possible. 

10th. The principle that underlies the whole subject 
of law, prohibition, exhortation, warning, penal inflic- 
tion, &c, in this regard. Does one exhort to that which 
lies in his power 1 

11th. The question of fact. Sin could not be, with- 



THESES IN THEOLOGY. 393 

out the liability of it. Its existence shows the liability 
of it in a moral system. 

Inferences: — 1st. A moral system is not responsible 
for its abuse. 

2d. A moral system cannot be altered, even though 
it may be abused. 

3d. The question of sin belongs not in an argument 
concerning God. God is not its father ; it is not of His 
economy for a universe, but outside of it, in one of its 
own, and is essentially anti-theistic. 

4th. The inquiry is irrevelant and absurd which asks, 
why God does not prevent all sin. The element of elec- 
tiveness is essentially in a moral system. Its means may 
all be expended, and yet its subjects go astray. It al- 
ways submits the question of obedience to the mind's 
voluntary arbitrament. 

5th. That may occur under a moral system, which is 
in no sense in accordance with the will of God ; which 
may be like rebellion, to the will and strategy of the 
State. 

9th. As sin is not a Divine method, God may exer- 
cise His discretion as to the time and way of manifest- 
ing His antagonism against it — may let the wicked fall 
into the pit which they have digged, and even let sin 
be the means of its own discomfiture, and of accom- 
plishing His benevolent purposes against it, and for its 
overthrow. 

7th. A probationary economy does not of course (may 
not) accomplish the whole will of God, or witness only 
that which is according to His will. 

8th. Retribution has the element of physical power 



394 THESES IN THEOLOGY. 

9th. The supremacy of God is through an indepen- 
dent economy of His own, circumventing sin, triumph- 
ing over it; either first by moral methods in probation, 
or eventually in retribution, to the honor of all right- 
eousness and truth. 

THESES IN THEOLOGY. IX. 

In these theses it is not claimed that each succeeding 
one is wholly an advance from previous ones, but that in 
the use of them, it presents some additional view, of the 
subject in hand, and adds something to the stock of 
thought intended — and to-day as follows, viz.: — 

Sin cannot he an expedient in the Divine economy of the 
universe. 

I. — 1st. 1 James xii, 17 : ''For God cannot be tempt- 
ed with evil," &c. 

2d. This would imply that there is a good reason for 
the existence of wrong, and that where it exists it is 
better and more desirable than right. 

3d. Sin is never only a means to an end, and if it be 
the Divine resort in an economy of things, then is God, 
in this respect, in the same category with all others who 
make it a resort in the plans and purposes they form. 

4th. As sin is but an intrinsic wrong, an essential un- 
reason, it is impossible that God should see reason for it 
in the Divine economy of the universe 

5th. As sin is essentially anti-theistic, it is logically 
impossible that it should be an ingredient in the Divine 
economy or an expedient of it. 

6th. If sin is a Divine expedient, then must God see 
reason for the infraction of His own law, which thing 
is absurd, and this 



THESES IN THEOLOGY. 395 

7th. Would imply that God is not immutable, and, 
of course, that He exists in the finite. 

8th. If sin be a Divine expedient, then is it a Divine 
necessity, and God is dependent on it, in His own econ- 
omy, for the greatest good. 

9th. If sin be a Divine expedient, then is not the 
right and normal ongoing of a perfect moral system the 
best method for it, and imperfection and wrong are 
better than perfection and right, and if so, then 

10th. A perfect righteousness is not the highest good. 

11th. Then, too, is not the law of God perfect in its 
requirements, and perfect obedience to it is not a duty, 
and it is better broken than kept. 

12th. If sin be a Divine expedient, then does God 
see infinitely good reasons for it, and that wherever it 
exists it could not be exchanged for anything else with- 
out detriment to a moral system. 

13th. If so, then is it not contrary to the will of God, 
and then is it what God would have to take place, and 
then is it not wrong, and then, too, is it not sin, and sin 
is an imposibility ; and then, too, is likeness to God and 
conformity to His will impossible without sin. 

14th. The heart of God would revolt at, and repudiate, 
such an expedient as sin in His method of the universe. 

15th. It would be to adopt the false and pernicious 
maxim, that " the end sanctifies the means" 

16th. It is impossible that sin should be a resort, as a 
method to an end, of any but a finite and wrong-minded 
being. 

17th. Those made in the image of God and who are 
commanded to be like Him, cannot follow such a lead 



396 THESES IN THEOLOGY. 

in their methods of securing results without forfeiting 
perfection of character. 

18th. The conscience which God has given us, as the 
transcript of His own, will not endorse such a resort in 
plans we lay and the methods we employ. 

19th. If sin be a Divine resort in the scheme of the 
universe, then is it clothed with the dignity of a Divine 
strategy, and entitled to the respect which belongs to 
the plans and purposes of God. 

20th, Then, too, ought we to know this, and to feel 
that when we are sinning, we are subserving the highest 
interests of the universe, and then, likewise, ought we 
to sin in the spirit of obedience to the will of God. 
But 

II. — 1st. If sin be not an expedient and resort in the 
Divine economy of the universe, so it need not be : it is 
essentially anti-theistic, and is abundantly accounted for 
in finite cause, contravening and counteracting the will, 
and purposes, and great end, which God has in view in 
all His works. 

2d. If sin be not a Divine expedient, &c, then " to 
its own master, it standeth or falleth." 

3d. And then, too, is not conscience a mislead, and a 
perfect Divine moral government is no mistake and no 
pageant. 

4th. Then, too, is the Divine prohibition of sin, at 
first, and always consistent, and appreciable, and exeget- 
ical of the unity and moral perfectness of all His rela- 
tions to it. 

5th. Then thus, also, is His providential rebuke of sin, 



THESES IN THEOLOGY. 397 

and His final settlement of woe on all those who persist 
in it. 

6th. Then, too, is not the Gospel merely part of a 
Divine strategy, in common with sin, but a real Divine 
remedy against it, and its outbreak in the finite contrary 
to the will and prohibition of God. 

7th. And hence the consistency, of repentance of sin, 
in order to forgiveness under the Gospel. 

8th. If sin be not God's expedient in His Divine 
method of the universe, and all His relations to it are 
consistent with perfect rectitude, then His peace of 
mind is not disturbed by it, any more than that of any 
other perfectly good being, in view of wrong. 

9th. As sin is thus, in no sense of God, He may exer- 
cise His sovereign discretion in His methods against it 
within the sphere of all rectitude and goodness — may 
let it be for its own rebuke and discomfiture, and even 
yield His Son to the power of His own enemies, " that 
through death He might conquer him who had the 
power of death," and be the life of the world, and thus 
bring order out of confusion, and light out of darkness. 

10. As God is in the right, in this controversy with 
sin and the powers of darkness, and has therewith all 
the moral and physical resources of the Infinite, we may 
confidingly know that, according to His Word, He will 
reign until He hath put all His enemies under His feet, 
and eternally vindicate the excellency and glory, and 
triumph of all righteousness, and goodness, and truth. 

Finally. — The prayers and labors of all good men, in 
behalf of the cause of Christ, and against sin, and the 
common sense of all men on all subjects, are a united 



398 THESES IN THEOLOGY. 

testimony for the validity and correctness of the view 
here taken. 

P. S. — I propose but two more themes in this series — 
the method of the Divine Supremacy, and the terms of a 
completed moral science. 

THESES IN THEOLOGY. X. 

How does the Infinite comprehend the Finite ?' or, How is 
God Supreme ? 

1st. Not in that He is the only cause. 

2d. Not in absorbing from finite intelligence, the 
proper element of personal cause. 

3d. Not in possessing, in relation to finite intelligence, 
direct and absolute sovereignty of its voluntary states. 
This would destroy it. Sovereignty in this regard is of 
the essence of personality, and all legitimate responsi- 
bility. 

4th. Not by the universal programme, and arrange- 
ment of all that is, so that the actual ongoing in the 
moral sphere, is resultant of His supremacy, and an ex- 
ponent of, or in accordance with, His plan and purpose 
and will ; and so that nothing shall be, but what He in 
some sense wills. 

5th. Not by the Divine permission of, or consent to, 
wrong. 

6th. Not by being unmindful or regardless of the 
fearfull wrong and remediless effects of sin in a moral 
system. But 

7th. In making, at first, a perfect system and economy 
of persons and things with finite intelligence, " in His 
own image, and after His likeness," at its head, and for 
a perfect end, in the highest rectitude and excellence. 



THESES IN THEOLOGY. 399 

8th. In using all the appropriate influences and pre- 
rogatives of the Infinite to keep it so, and universally 
to attain this end. 

9th. In knowing, intuitively, what are the inherent 
liabilities of a perfect moral system, and the facts of it 
in actual history. 

10th. In being physically omnipotent and indepen- 
dent in the full appropriate sphere of the Infinite, 
"Who doeth all things after the counsel of His own 
will." 

11th. In aiding, and sustaining, and influencing, in 
every way of wisdom and truth, all right action in finite 
cause, in accordance with His purpose and great end in 
all things. 

12th. In antagonizing, in every way of wisdom, in- 
tegrity and truth against all wrong there, "bringing 
light out of darkness, and order out of confusion ;" 
limiting the prevalence, and remedying the effects of 
sin, and instructing the universe in view of it. 

13th. In the use of the prerogatives of the Infinite, 
bringing, however, a triumph at length on all righteous- 
ness, and discredit and discomfiture on all sin and 
wrong. 

14th. In reigning to the eventual putting down of all 
sin, and confining its adherents to their own place, and 
the exaltation of all righteousness. 

15th. In securing glory to His name, and to all right- 
eousness, in all these His relations to the finite. 

16th. In doing all that, in the moral sphere, to this 
end, both in probation and retribution, which is appro- 
priate to them on the part of the Infinite. 



400 THESES IN THEOLOGY. 

Inferences. — 1st. Then is there legitimate cause and 
responsibility in the finite. 

2d. Then is there unity of moral character and aim 
in the Infinite. 

3d. Then is the Divine moral economy a realty and 
no mere pageant. 

4th. Then may there be that, which is every way con- 
trary to God, and in resistance of His will. 

5th. Then may there be that of which God is in no 
sense the projector, and of which He may say, as in 
the Bible, " I neither spake it, neither came it into My 
mind." 

6th. Then is sin an intrinsic evil, and no way a Divine 
strategy for good. 

7th. There is good connected with sin, only in the 
way of remedy from it and its effects, through a coun- 
teracting Divine providence 

8th. Then is the condition of the finally lost, the only 
Divine alternative concerning them. 

9th. Then is the supremacy of God, in respect to the 
moral system, more to be observed in its results than in 
its probationary ongoing. "For He must reign until He 
hath put all His enemies under His feet." " For now 
we see not all things put under Him." 

THESES IN THEOLOGY. XL 

The terms of a completed Moral Science. 

I. — Moral science is not complete while it fails to 
harmonize religious doctrine with the fundamental prin- 
ciples of all morality, — our creed with our conscience. 

1. Conscience is a God-send, — an element of our* 
moral being as constituted in the image of God. 



THESES IN THEOLOGY 



401 



2d. As God is one, our subjective being, as Divinely 
constituted, must be in harmony with objective truth. 

3d. The conscience is, necessarily, the concrete umpire 
in every question of right. 

4th. The conscience is in harmony with all known 

truth; and hence 

5th. That is anomalous, and out of place in religious 
doctrine, which belies, or is out of harmony with the 
dictates of conscience as above, and, at least, argues an 
incomplete analysis of the subject. 

II. — Moral science is incomplete while it ignores the 
relations of God to wrong. 

1st. Moral principles are co-ordinates of the Deity ; we 
estimate his character by them, or how know that he is 
good. 

2d. We were made in His "likeness," and if He is 
" above morality," so may we be. 

3d. God is our example, and we are commanded to be 
perfect as He is. 

4th. He is the objective source of authority, which 
vests only in righteousness. 

5th. If we do not know God's relations to wrong, 
neither then do we know His relations to right, and are 
at sea, over the whole domain of morality and religion. 

6th. Ignorance of the Divine relations to wrong be- 
gets a weakened sense of obligation in ourselves to do 
and be right. 

III. — Moral science is incomplete while it fails to give 
the doctrine of full and proper personal cause in finite 
intelligence. 

1st. This is the doctrine of consciousness. We have 
the personal " me," and it is legitimate cause, in its own 
26 



402 THESES IN THEOLOGY. 

behoof, as truly as in the Infinite, and we cannot 
ignore it. 

2d. It is essential to responsibility. 

3d. It only can account for the existence of sin and 
wrong, and thus the terms of a completed moral science 
are, that it defines the relations of God to wrong, and 
harmonizes our religious creed with our conscience and 
the first principles of all morality. 

IV. — The dogma that sin and wrong are a Divine 
strategy, and are introduced into the Divine economy 
as an expedient for good, does not thus harmonize reli- 
gious belief with the first principles of all morality — 
the creed with the conscience. 

1st. It does not profess to do this, but acknowledges 
the incompatibility in question. 

2d. It argues always, respecting it, to the point of 
ad ignorantiam. 

3d. It asserts that the relations of God to wrong can- 
not be resolved, and that He is " above morality" in this 
respect. 

4th. It involves the solecism that a wrong method 
may not be wrong. 

5th. It involves the immorality that " the end sancti- 
fies the means." 

6th. It makes the expedients of mercy to be of the» 
original law of the Divine economy, of which, from the 
nature of the case, they could not be. 

7th. It is exposed to all the objections stated in this 
whole series of Theses. 

V. — The doctrine that makes sin no part of the Di- 
vine economy, but simply an outbreak from it in finite 



THESES IN THEOLOGY. 403 

cause, does harmonize with the first principles of belief 
in the conscience and with the doctrines of all morality. 

1st. It holds that the relations of God to wrong are 
suggested as a first truth of reason and morality. 

2d. It takes to the point of ad inteUigentiam, what the 
other view takes, to that of ad ignorantiam. 

3d. It meets the demands of consciousness, in the 
doctrine of cause, in our voluntary nature. 

4th. It meets the terms of conscience in the question 
of morality. 

5th. Intelligence in finite being constituted " in the 
image of God, and like Him," possessing the attribute 
of inherent cause in its sphere, must, as properly as He 
does, originate its voluntary states, and plans, and pur- 
poses, and voluntary acts, on the responsibilities of a 
moral being. 

6th. On no other principle is there any vitality in a 
moral system, and thus this view is demanded by the 
necessities of moral science. 

P. S. — This completes the topics designed at present, 
and may I ask for the whole series a careful revision and 
study by those who would justify religious belief, and 
harmonize the creed with the conscience. 

THESES IN THEOLOGY. XII. 

Are the souls of men the immediate creation of God, 
and Divinely infused and implanted in them severally, 
as they gain each their personal being ; or, are they re- 
sultant of the law of pro-creation and descent, as their 
bodies are in a continuous economy'? Not the first, but 
the last. For if the first, then — 



404: THESES IN THEOLOGY. 

1st. They would be morally pure and perfect like 
God, as were the angels and Adam at their creation. 

2d. Then would there be no hereditary proclivity to 
wrong in the races. 

3d. Then would not there be that progressive deteri- 
oration in clans and tribes of men often, which history 
shows ? 

4th. Then could there be no general lapse of the 
world into heathenism. 

5th. Then would not the influence of a precedent gen- 
eration, on an immediately succeeding one, be what it is ? 

6 th. Then could there be no nature of things, in the 
race, in the moral sphere. 

7th. Then would the lesson of history be less instruc- 
tive and responsible, and its experience less important 
and useful. 

8th. Then would the doctrine of morality be less im- 
posing and urgent. 

9th. Then would not the scriptural doctrine of the 
nature and necessity of regeneration be true ? 

10th. Then would the perpetuated idiosyncrasies of 
races and tribes and families of men be unaccountable. 

11th. Then would the origin of the race be renewed 
in every generation. 

But in evidence of the last : — 

1st. A merely corporeal descent is not a descent of be- 
ing, and would not constitute it true that Abraham begat 
Isaac, and Isaac Jacob, and Jacob the twelve patriarchs. 

2d. The process of procreation is as properly mental 
as corporeal, and may as properly communicate mental 
as corporeal being. 



THESES IN THEOLOGY. 405 

3d. Children have as much the mental and moral 
peculiarities of their parents, ancestors and tribes, as 
their corporeal peculiarities. 

4th. Resemblance of mind to parents often manifests 
itself in the looks and actions, &c, of children, through 
the mental constitution. The ideal similarity is often 
greater than the bodily. 

5th. The mental and moral peculiarities and habits of 
children are but the reflex of those of their parents, often. 

6th. The mental peculiarities of children are often 
but the blended combination of those of both parents. 

7th. The children of intellectual parents (cceteris pa- 
ribus) are the more intellectual. 

8th. The headship of Adam to the race, in the matter 
of accountability, must refer primarily and chiefly to his 
intellectual and spiritual being. 

9th. The doctrine of an inherited proclivity to evil 
can be true only on this principle. 

10th. The universal depravity of mankind is other- 
wise unaccountable. 

11th. The scriptural doctrine of the necessity of re- 
generation is otherwise untrue. 

12th. The felt tendencies in us to evil otherwise can- 
not be accounted for. 

13th This only lays the legitimate ?nd sufficient foun- 
dation for the domestic affections of parent and child. 
•We name them, and why, if the relation is merely 
corporeal % 

14th. We consciously have those traits of mind which 
our parents evince. 



406 THESES IN THEOLOGY. 

15th. This is a universal law of being- and descent in na- 
ture and every where, — vegetable, animal, after its kind, — the 
whole being is propogated — alterations are by cross-breeds 
and intermixtures — the Infinite, the Son, has the moral nature 
and " status" of the Father. 

Objections : I. — Does not this compromit the doctrine of 
personal accountability ? 

Ans. — 1st. In all right and normal action of the race, this 
feature of the economy would be advantageous, and would 
not be complained of. 

2d. That man sinned, and that the race is now off the track, 
and under law to sin, is not a Divine responsibility. 

3d. The law and lead of sin may be expected to be unhap- 
py and unprofitable any where and any how. 

4th. Ail sinful indulgence is personal and resistible, though 
a proclivity to it may be inherited. It is but the law of all 
habit and propensity, which one may resist or comply with 
on his individual responsibility. If the tendency is innate, 
so are reason and conscience, with their plea and rightful 
sway for rectitude, duty and truth. 

5th. There must be personal compliance with wrong sug- 
gestions and tendencies, in order to be reckoned a sinner. 

THESES IN THEOLOGY. XIH. 

Does God form and arrange temptations to sin and wrong ? 

Ans. — He makes and arranges all things for uprightness and 
goodness and truth. The drift and aim and design and in- 
tent and end of His universal providence, is a holy, happy, 
intelligent universe, like Himself — made in His image for 
union in excellence and happiness with Himself. The universe 
He has filled with motives to this, and any other use of them 
is a perversion, which He will punish or remedy. 

Proof: — 1st. A Divine activity in uprightness, and for it, in 
the direction of His own perfections, is the boundary sphere 
of the Infinite. 



THESES IN THEOLOGY. 407 

2d. Any other lead on His part would mar his perfections, 
and impugn the first principles of all morality. 

3d. Any other lead He would have no heart to, as He " doeth 

all things after the counsel of His own will," and would never 

do. / 
4th. For God to sustain a propositional relation to wrong, 

would be to deny Himself. 

5th. The relation of sin, to God, must logically be, that of 
rebellion to the state it plots against. 

6th. God inhibits all wrong, and, therefore, could in con- 
sistency take no measures in favor of its existence. 

7th. Sin being an intrinsic evil, could not be regarded by 
God as the means of good. 

8th. His law is the exponent of His whole will in this regard. 

9th. His providence and the conscience He has given us 
rebuke us when we do wrong. 

10th. Sin is direct rebellion against the being and govern- 
ment sway of God. 

11th. Sin must be rebutted and remedied, in order to have 
God's end in creation attained. 

12th. Sin must be repented of and repudiated, as that which 
is every way counter to the will and sway of God. 

Hence : — 1st. Let no man say when he is tempted, " I am 
tempted of God." 

2d. God's providence universally, is but an argument for 
uprightness and virtue. 

3d. The will of man may, in its perversity, turn to a wrong 
use and end a right and well intended providence. 

4th. We may pervert to wrong and mischief what God 
means for good. 

THESES IN THEOLOGY. XIV. 

How is the supremacy of God, in the moral sphere, maintained? 
1st. Not by being the only cause. 

2d. Not by invading or invalidating the appropriate sphere 
of finite cause. 



408 THESES IN THEOLOGY. 

3d Not in that the ongoing i n this sphere is always as he 
would hare it, or as the transcript of His will 
_ 4th. Not in that all events as related to their causes, or as 
in themselves, are the best possible. 

5th._Not in having the direct and absolute control and 
sovereignty of the voluntary states and actions of finite intel- 
ligences. 

But-lst, By the attribute of Omnipotence in its proper 
working in the physical sphere. 

Sd. By exerting this power as wisdom directs, audits na- 
ture admits of in the moral sphere. 

3d. Approximately, through a universe of moral, resistible 
influences. 

4th. Do. through the appropriate methods of probation 

5th. Do. through do. of a resultant retribution 

6th. Through a sphere of independence, in His own proper 

agency, and for His own end, over and above all others, and 

as the case may be in opposition to them. 

^ 7th. By an eventually successful combat over wron* in 

unite cause. ° 

8th. Through a recuperative agency against the mischiefs 
or wrong m finite cause. 

9th. By, at length, putting down all wrong, and confining 
it to its own place. 

10th. By at length, and in the end, exacting all righteous- 
ness over wrong, and bestowing all honor upon it, to the dis- 
comfiture of all wrong. 

11th. By reigning ever in righteousness himself, and bring- 
ing all willingly or unwillingly, in heart or condition, even- 
tually under his sway. 



THE END. 



H 132 82 



% 



k * <i 

V 












' V 



•4- * J" 7 













%^ 














?1 



*P"V. 






d 



I'*: V fife V : «& ^ 

^ji* «/> ^» Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 

^~ Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
"O S* Treatment Date: April 2005 

v **^^!lV. ^ « **JSmJ!&>* PreservationTechnologies 

• Jgi^Q^ * A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 
1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
^•^ » <Z/yy/jW2r * K "V *** •%3R^^^* * Cranberry Township, PA 16066 



IS" 




IN DIANA 46962' 

. ___ ; 



